Dragon Racing has announced the retention of Jose Maria Lopez for the 2018/19 FIA Formula E Championship.
The American team will keep the services of Lopez for another season after the Argentine joined the team as a replacement to Neel Jani in 2017/18 season when the Swiss driver left the outfit after only the first round.
Lopez then competed the whole season alongside Jerome d’Ambrosio as the team finished ninth in the standings with 41 points. This will be the 35-year-old’s third year in the all-electric series after joining DS Virgin in 2016/17 season.
“[My] expectations are to be competitive from the start to achieve top spot results,” said Lopez. The team has put in an incredible effort during this, and I am looking forward to working with them to keep improving and evolving throughout the season.
The team headed by Jay Penske has been competing in Formula E since the inaugural year in 2014/15. It finished second in its first year and since then it has had a difficult time with a best of fourth in the remaining three seasons.
Penske added: “Jose showed a lot of promise in Season 4 and has been an invaluable asset in the development of the package for Season 5. He is a real racer, and I am confident that his capabilities, paired with the evolution of our engineering organization will prove to be a winning formula this season.
“I look forward to seeing the results.” The team is yet to confirm its second driver as they prepare for the official pre-season testing which starts next week at Valencia with the new season starting on December 15 in Saudi Arabia.
Formula E 2018/19 line-up till now:
Venturi: Felipe Massa & Edoardo Mortara
Jaguar Racing: Nelson Piquet Jr & Mitch Evans
Audi: Lucas di Grassi & Daniel Abt
BMW Andretti: Antonio Felix da Costa & Alexander Sims
Nissan: Sebastien Buemi & Alexander Albon
DS Techeetah: Jean-Eric Vergne & Andre Lotterer
Envision Virgin Racing: Sam Bird & Robin Frijns
NIO Formula E Team: Oliver Turvey & Tom Dillmann
HWA Racelab: Gary Paffet