Alfa Romeo returns after 30 years
LONDON
FORMULA E is trying to focus on the present but looking very much to the future as the electric racing series powers up for the start of season four in Hong Kong this weekend.
The 2017/18 championship, which opens with ePrix today and tomorrow, is the last before a major revamp brings better batteries and new cars that can complete an entire race distance.
Audi are present as a factory team but other big guns are waiting in the wings. Nissan will replace Renault in 2018/19, when BMW also enter as an official manufacturer team, and Porsche and Mercedes are coming in for 2019/20.
Formula E’s chief executive Alejandro Agag rejects suggestions however that the city-based series, which currently sees drivers having to change cars mid-race, is biding its time.
“Many people are seeing season four almost like a transition to season five when we get the new car and battery. I don’t see it at all like that because there are no transition seasons,” says the Spaniard.
“If you win, season four is the same as if you win season five. You are champion of Formula E. So I think it’s going to be a very competitive season.
“The teams that have already extracted a lot from the evolution of the technology, haven’t been able to really improve that much. Many of the teams that weren’t there yet are catching up, so I think it’s going to be very tight,” he added.
Jaguar, starting their second season, are confident they can be among those moving to the front but team director James Barclay also recognised they were looking further down the road.
“Season five is a big one,” he said. “So we’re parallel programming at the moment, season four and season five and looking beyond.”
Agag said the major manufacturers would also be a more noticeable presence in the paddock, spend in key markets as they seek to build the fan base and develop storylines around drivers.
“If you look at season one in China and season four in China, it’s like another world,” said Agag, referring to the very first Formula E race in Beijing in September 2014.
“Season one in China, we didn’t really know what we were doing. I moved to Beijing for one month before to try and make the thing happen and we had to basically spend every day sorting out problems.
“You come now and you will see engineers from Jaguar, Porsche, Audi, Mercedes, BMW, Renault, Nissan preparing for season five. You see huge partners involved in the championship.”
Formula E, whose reigning champion is Brazilian Lucas di Grassi, will have 14 races in 11 cities in 2017-18 with four new venues on the calendar in Rome, Zurich, Sao Paulo and the Chilean capital Santiago.
The ePrix in Switzerland will be the country’s first motor race since 1955 after the country lifted restrictions on circuit racing for fully-electric vehicles. Reuters
Reuters LONDON: Alfa Romeo is returning to Formula One for the first time in 30 years with the century-old Italian marque partnering the Swiss-based Sauber team as title sponsors.
The team’s official name from next season will become Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 as part of a multi-year technical and commercial partnership, with the Ferrari-powered cars sporting Alfa’s colours and logo.
“This agreement with the Sauber F1 Team is a significant step in the reshaping of the Alfa Romeo brand,” Fiat Chrysler chief executive Sergio Marchionne said in a statement on Wednesday.
The move, which had been widely expected, comes after the end of a Formula One season that saw Ferrari finish runners-up to Mercedes in the constructors’ championship while Sauber were last.
Ferrari’s late founder Enzo started out racing and managing a team for Alfa Romeo, before setting up on his own in the late 1930s. Ferrari celebrated the 70th anniversary of his first car this year.
The first two Formula One world championships in 1950 and 1951 were won by Italian Giuseppe ‘Nino’ Farina and Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio in Alfa Romeo cars. The constructors’ championship did not start until 1958.
The company, founded in 1910, supplied engines in the 1960s and 1970s and returned as a constructor in 1979 before again withdrawing at the end of 1985.
Italian car giant Fiat bought Alfa, whose iconic red Spider 1600 model was driven by Dustin Hoffman in the 1967 cult film “The Graduate” in 1986 and Alfa branding has featured on Ferrari Formula One cars in recent seasons.
“Working closely with a car manufacturer is a great opportunity for the Sauber Group to further develop its technology and engineering projects,” said Sauber Holding AG chairman Pascal Picci.
“We are confident that together we can bring the Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team great success, and look forward to a long and successful partnership.” Reuters