Formula E’s ninth season starts this week in Mexico City with plenty of change as it heads into its Gen3 era. However, it’s not just the cars that are changing with new sporting regulations dropping over the break, here’s everything you need to know ahead of this weekend’s action.
Of course, the major change heading into the season is the cars themselves. Unveiled last year in Monaco, the Gen3 car is the fastest, most powerful electric vehicle yet. The car is 60kg lighter and 100kW more powerful than its Gen2 predecessor.
However, the start of the Gen3 era hasn’t been smooth sailing with reliability issues for both the new power units developed by Williams Advanced Engineering as well as the new front-only brakes. While developments are being made to improve this, the reliability of teams could be a real deal breaker in the opening rounds of the series.
READ MORE: 2022-23 Formula E season: Race calendar and driver line-ups
As well as a change to the cars, Formula E also said farewell to long-term tyre partner Michelin at the end of Season 8 and will be supplied by Hankook for Season 9 onwards. The series will still use one, all-weather compound for the upcoming year. Reports from testing suggest Hankook have taken a conservative approach to its development, using a very strong compound with limited degradation.
Onto the sporting changes for the series, Formula E will return to racing to a lap length as opposed to the previous 45 minutes + 1 lap the series has used in the past. The exact calculations of race distance will be posted by the series three weeks before the start of each race.
The added time procedure of previous seasons stays, being renamed to “Added Laps” in keeping with the format change. With the greater regeneration capacity of the new car, hopefully, we should see energy strategy play an even bigger role in this new format.
We will also say goodbye to the series’ controversial Fan Boost system. The system, which had been present in Formula E since its inaugural season, allowed fans to vote for their favourite driver to gain an extra boost of power in the race.
The series has not specifically stated why the system has been removed, however, we will hopefully see a fast charging pit stop present later on in the season so it is expected it was removed to make room for this new development.
Like Formula 1, Formula E will also give rookie drivers the chance to experience its machinery in rookie Free Practice sessions, which all teams will have to partake in. However, unlike F1’s rule which allows drivers with two or fewer races under their belt to participate, these sessions will be specifically for rookies who have never competed in the series.
With limited testing time already for teams, it is expected these sessions will mainly take place at tracks Formula E has regularly attended such as Berlin and London.
The series’ Attack Mode will also get a facelift in Season 9. The drivers and teams will be able to have more control over the deployment of Attack Mode which allows the cars to utilise all 350kW of its full power mode for a select amount of time.
Instead of activating it all in one go, drivers will be able to split the deployment of Attack Mode, but will still have to use the Attack Mode Activation zone off the racing line to do this.
With all of these changes, the first race in Mexico City will be one to watch as the teams and drivers get up to speed. Keep an eye on Motorsport Week for all our coverage over the weekend.
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