Formula E season preview
Motorsport giants Mercedes and Porsche will be in the mix as the sixth season of the all-electric championship kicks off in Saudi Arabia this weekend
If 2018-19 was the season Formula E grew up with its Gen2 car, 2019-20 is when it gets serious. While not to denigrate what came before, Mercedes and Porsche don’t mess around. These motorsport giants are about to take their electricracing bow, and will join Audi and BMW in the FE whirlwind. All four luxury German OEMS racing in the same series – it’s another achievement for FE to savour, and the championship is understandably keen to promote this battle throughout the upcoming campaign. It feels historic, but is it actually so significant in terms of previous motorsport competition?
“I reckon GT3 blows that as a first out of the water,”says one Autosport sage. With all four German giants effectively sending factory squads to major sportscar races – the Nurburgring and
Spa 24 Hours events, plus the GT World Cup in Macau – they’ve certainly all shared grids. Given Mercedes’long absences from works motorsport competition, Le Mans 1999 is probably the closest they’ve come to competing for a gold-standard prize, but Porsche’s decision to step down to the secondary GT class after winning overall in 1998 means all four weren’t in the same battle. All that considered, the first time all four works teams have competed for a major FIA championship is the safest description for these particular bragging rights.
Let’s start with the new arrivals. Mercedes’entry is tied to the
Gen2 car – the absence of car swaps was crucial to getting the company to consider FE. It’s been a long time coming, with the announcement that Mercedes would exit the DTM to prioritise its new venture made in July 2017. But Porsche’s journey to the
FE grid – from the World Endurance Championship LMP1 class
– has been just four days shorter.
Since then, they’ve gone about their respective preparations in different ways. Mercedes got a feeler year with HWA’S exploratory 2018-19 season, while Porsche switched its LMP1 team’s focus to FE from afar (although with plenty of visits to the paddock to gain insight).
Given their illustrious motorsport histories, there’s no denying that Mercedes and Porsche have top billing in the eyes of many going into the new season. For that reason, their fortunes will be under great scrutiny – which was evident in the pre-season group test at Valencia last month.
It has been suggested by various sources that degrees of sandbagging and glory-running occurred up and down the grid.
But, given the unrepresentative nature of the Circuit Ricardo
Tormo compared to a normal FE track, that is understandable.
Reigning champion Jean-eric Vergne even said his DS Techeetah car felt“awful”to drive because there was simply no point in setting it up to be good at Valencia.
That is a natural preclusion to predicting the pecking order, but the initial view is that both Mercedes and Porsche have varying amounts of work to do. Porsche set the 10th-fastest time of the 12 teams with Andre Lotterer’s 1m15.699s effort, while Mercedes was just behind in 11th with Stoffel Vandoorne’s 1m15.736s – which puts them 0.612s and 0.649s behind the overall quickest time of 1m15.087s from BMW Andretti’s Maximilian Gunther.
But, as ever in FE, being fastest over a lap isn’t the ultimate consideration when it comes to assessing car performance. An efficient package remains key and, based on an analysis of the second test‘race’organised by FE at Valencia, it’s Mercedes ahead, with Vandoorne’s average lap time sixth-best, 0.427s slower than ‘winner’sebastien Buemi (Nissan e.dams) per the accumulated times. Porsche was eighth in the average order, with Lotterer 0.611s down.
Neel Jani is anticipating the season opener in Riyadh this weekend
“GIVEN THEIR ILLUSTRIOUS MOTORSPORT HISTORIES, THERE’S NO DENYING THAT MERCEDES AND PORSCHE HAVE TOP BILLING IN THE EYES OF MANY GOING INTO THE NEW SEASON”
being“a tough one”for Porsche, but write off the 19-time
Le Mans winner at your peril.
Testing times suggest Mercedes could also be heading for a low-key FE debut, but one source has reported optimism in the camp, particularly when it comes to qualifying. It is suggested that Mercedes could do well against the clock, but then slip back in the races – as HWA often did last season. Ultimately, both newcomers will have a boost in Riyadh as their rookie status guarantees them group-four slots at a track that is likely to have a significant qualifying track-evolution factor.
While many eyes are on Mercedes and Porsche, Audi and BMW can hardly be dismissed. Although DS Techeetah has usurped Audi as the FE benchmark over the past two seasons with Vergne’s title successes, the team still felt it was up there in terms of efficiency at the end of last season. Daniel Abt’s best time of 1m15.673s had Audi ninth at Valencia, and just 0.026s ahead of Porsche, but crunching Lucas di Grassi’s lap times from the Buemi-headed test race put Audi fifth and just 0.273s back in the efficiency stakes.
BMW stole the testing show for the second year in a row with Gunther’s best time. But BMW dropped to 11th in the‘race’,
0.761s off the best average and only ahead of NIO. The Andrettioperated BMW team, which scored its first win in Riyadh last year, is targeting a step with its evolved package.
“The key to success in FE is really having a clean race weekend – you don’t necessarily have to be the fastest, but you need to be able to execute,”says BMW team boss Roger Griffiths.“so, we did a lot of reflection on what happened, where we needed to improve and really focused on that. Some of that was operational, some of that was engineering, some of that was development.”
On the driver front, the four German OEMS sparkle with talent on an already glittering grid.
Mercedes has added recently crowned Formula 2 champion
Nyck de Vries to HWA’S ex-f1 racer Vandoorne, while Porsche has brought in Lotterer from DS Techeetah to partner rookie
(with two starts from Hong Kong in 2017) Jani – so just the four Le Mans wins between them. Audi continues with the di Grassi/
Abt alliance that has enjoyed so much success in FE’S opening years, while BMW has brought in Gunther to replace Antonio Felix da Costa. Gunther shone in trying circumstances at Dragon last year, and will be partnered with the impressive Alexander Sims, who is targeting a smoother run in his second FE campaign.
“It’s good for the championship,”mcnish says of Fe’s“bundesliga” (his word) subplot.“it’s also a confirmation that decisions we’ve all made have been right in terms of electrification and the future, and I think it will only boost us all together. However, clearly there can only be one winner. There are four of us here, but there are also eight others out there that want to make sure they’re that one.”
Given it has won the past two drivers’titles, DS Techeetah heads those eight other squads. The team was close on overall pace at Valencia – with da Costa putting it fourth. But the team knows that nothing counts just yet, and its past success means it goes into the new season holding the biggest target.
Expect Envision Virgin Racing to continuing punching above its weight (as an Audi customer squad, with Venturi now joining it in that status as an immediate Mercedes customer), with its slick race operation and rapid line-up in Sam Bird and Robin Frijns.
Perhaps the biggest congratulations ahead of the new campaign should go to Nissan, which successfully adapted its banned twinmotor powertrain from 2018-19 in time to make the Valencia running. This was capped by Buemi’s‘win’and its place at the top of our average lap time calculation. But, given the sandbagging suggestions emanating from the paddock, it would be unwise to declare any team a clear favourite.
There are new faces at Dragon with Brendon Hartley and Nico Muller, and at Jaguar too, as James Calado makes his single-seater return for the first time in six years. All three are set to miss a race due to FE’S unfortunate WEC (Hartley and Calado) and DTM (Muller) clashes, with the former also a possible sticking point for Buemi’s title hopes.
The Gen2 car remains unchanged for its second season and, other than the revised Nissan package and those of the new entrants, powertrains are generally considered to be evolutions of last year’s designs. Many drivers reported little in the way of noticeable differences from behind the wheel in testing.
FE and the FIA have altered the sporting rules for 2019-20, which could have a big impact on the racing. In addition to an
“THE KEY TO SUCCESS IN FORMULA E IS REALLY HAVING A CLEAN RACE WEEKEND – YOU DON’T NECESSARILY HAVE TO BE THE FASTEST, BUT YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO EXECUTE”
attack mode boost of 10kw to 235kw and drivers being banned from activating the system during full-course yellow or safety car periods, a point is now on offer for the fastest driver in group qualifying (plus the existing one for topping superpole), which could be a crucial factor come the finale. But the major change is that a set amount of energy will be deducted from each car after each race suspension – equal to 1kwh per minute for the duration of the caution period. So, a five-minute safety car means a 5kwh subtraction. The thinking behind this change is to increase energy management tests – ideally creating more 2019 Mexico City last-gasp finishes, and eliminating the crashfests seen at the start of the last campaign.
FE had eight teams win in just 13 races in 2018-19 – a success spread that’s easily the best of any major championship (NASCAR has had six in 2019 so far, DTM and Indycar five, Formula 1 three and WEC two) and one the series is keen to retain.
A difference of 0.649s between the top 11 teams in the overall testing order (sorry NIO, at 1.481s adrift) hardly indicates that FE’S unpredictable reputation is going to disappear but, if the new rules work as intended, then the most efficient packages should come to the fore. Plus, the qualifying-order rule (generally, the higher you are in the championship the less-ideal conditions you get in qualifying) that worked so effectively in shaking up the grids last season will again be a major factor.
FE may be more serious than ever – the prestige of Mercedes and Porsche joining gives added reward to success for the established squads – but the latest chapter in this exciting series will no doubt be as chaotic as ever.