With plenty of driver line-up changes, and new and old faces returning, there is a lot to look out for during the upcoming campaign in the all-electric Formula E series.
To preview the year, Motorsport Monday spoke to some of the TNT Sports punditry line-up to get their thoughts on some of the most pressing topics before a wheel is turned…
Championship favourites?
Billy Monger: “My favourite for the championship is going to be Mitch Evans, purely on the fact that he’s been competitive for the last few years.
“It kind of goes under the radar sometimes and I think Jaguar have got a strong line-up with him, I think he can rise to that challenge.
“My other pick is I’m going for is the reigning champion, Jake Dennis. I do think Mitch will have a strong year but I think Jake has a level of consistency that he showed last year, which makes me think that there’s no reason why, if he can perform at all those different racetracks and in those different scenarios again, he won’t be in the mix again.”
Nicki Shields: “From last year’s performance and the results from testing, Jaguar are looking like the guys to beat at the moment.
“At the start of the season, the results can be very different from what we’ve seen the year before but they are carrying momentum on from season 9 into season 10. The fact that you’ve now got Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy going up against each other, rivals last season now working together, but both wanting to win their drivers’ title is exciting.”
Allan McNish: “The main contenders are going to be the Porsche teams and the Jaguar teams. And when I say that, I mean teams, I don’t just mean their factory team, I also mean their customer teams as well.
“In my experience, though, that’s probably a little bit narrow-minded, because what you tend to find is that somebody gets a little bit of a momentum over the winter, a reset, and then they can start to pick up. The one that has got the biggest chance of that is DS because they’ve been very good in the past coming out of blocks, and they were pretty quick in testing.”
Karun Chandhok: “I think you’ve got to say, based on last season, Jaguar at the end of the year had the strongest package in terms of the power trains, the driver line ups, both teams are super strong. I think this is Jaguar’s championship to lose, I think they’ve got fantastic drivers and they’ve come so close in the past few years. They’ve got to be the favourites going in.”
Dark Horses?
NS: “I don’t know whether you would say they are under the radar but obviously McLaren had a mixed season last year but now Sam Bird is bringing a wealth of knowledge and I think they’ll learn a lot from Sam. So potentially, I think McLaren may be a bit of a dark horse and one to keep an eye on and Ian James has led that team to winning titles with Mercedes with Nyck de Vries for example so they’ve won World Championships.”
AM: “Nico Muller for me is somebody for the future, well he’s somebody for now. I don’t expect him to fight for titles but I do expect him to be overperforming and getting the results and so I think that’s a bit of a dark horse for me is Nico in the car.”
KC: “I think the thing with Formula E is it’s quite hard to read into testing because everybody does such different programmes and uses energy differently. The way you use battery, the power, can vary the lap time so much. It’s quite hard to tell.
“Last year was the first season with a Hankook tyre and I think that threw up a few curveballs for people. Porsche obviously started the season very strong, and everyone thought they’re going to walk it and then Jaguar sort of came back. McLaren went the other way. I think I’d be interested to see what happens with DS this year because they had a pretty subpar season, by their standards, because they they had two world champions behind the wheel. I’d be interested to see if they can turn it around.”
On Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy becoming team-mates at Jaguar…
BM: “I’ve had team-mates that live half an hour away from me! He still is my best mate, so that relationship managed to survive our time as team-mates!
“But when it comes to on track action with having a team-mate like that, I think it’s important that the racing is one thing, and then off-the-track stuff stays the same. Whether that happens with Mitch and Nick, it will be up to them to to figure out and hopefully, from a team’s point of view, they will be hoping they just don’t come together in the first place and then we won’t have to worry about any animosity building there.
“I think for them they will race respectfully but race hard. I think they’re both competitive people. You need to be competitive in Formula E to have a chance because it’s so close. There’s so many different teams that can win the championship, if you take your foot off the gas and don’t go for an overtake because it’s your team-mate in front of you, that might result in you not winning the championship. I think they’re both going to have to just put those things aside and just race hard.”
NS: “They’re really smart drivers and I think that they will work really well together. We know they’re both from Auckland and they started racing together at a young age so there’s a huge amount of history there. They are great friends, they really trust each other, and I think this is probably one of the best driver pairings that we’ve seen in Formula E.”
AM: “You’re never a friend, you’re a friend until you get to the circuit, and then the visor shuts and you’re not offering anything because everybody’s exactly the same as everybody else.
“Clearly in the same team, in the same car, they’re going to be fighting for the same bit of track. And I would say clearly, there’s going to be times through the year where James Barclay the team principal will have to smooth the waters. But, in some respects, from a team principal point of view, that is actually a fortunate situation, because you’ve got two drivers that are probably at the peak of their power with a car that can potentially win. And so therefore it can deliver. And in that respect, then you get to a position where actually, you’re in a luxurious situation of being able to cope with maybe one or two occasions through the year where it maybe gets a wee bit closer than what you ideally would like.”
KC: “I think they just have to get in, stay professional, and keep a healthy respect. You know they’re both very, very competitive drivers and they both want to win, they want to win the Drivers’ Championship. And James [Barclay] and the team have to manage the relationships but what I like about both those guys is they are grownups. They’re mature, mature grown-ups. They take the wins and losses on the chin and they just turn up and drive.”
On Jake Dennis….
BM: “I think his mindset last season made him champion, so I wouldn’t change too much. I’d try and keep as much the same as possible. He was so consistent, he didn’t really make many mistakes.
“There’s more pressure attached to him now he’s champion but how he handled things last year was worked for him so I think it’s a case of not really trying to do anything too spectacular from the first race. If he doesn’t win the first race that doesn’t mean he’s not going to win the championship again. There is a target on his back but that shouldn’t change how he approaches a race weekend.”
NS: “I think ultimately he is the reigning champion coming into the first race but as soon as the first lap takes place, that’s almost kind of wiped away and you’re starting again.
“It’s a massive confidence boost for him and the team to know that all that hard work they’ve put in over the years has finally paid off and obviously they know they can do it. Jake is clearly a very skilled Formula E driver and we saw that from his rookie year so he will be confident but I think he also knows that the hard work has just begun. Just because you’re a season champion, it doesn’t really mean that you’re guaranteed success in the future.”
AM: “It’s a reset. You know, nobody cares about last year. That’s ancient history. It’s about what happens now and motorsport has got this fantastic way of bringing you back down to Earth if you get too confident and too comfortable and I think we saw in testing that clearly they’re going to be quick again but it’s not going to be easy.
“What he’s got to do is just start from ground zero and build on the same championship with the confidence he gained through the course of the year. He’s now got a title under his belt, he knows how to do it and very often for a driver there is a point where you believe you know how to win a championship and once you do it you can then replicate it and he will be wanting to replicate it with the total knowledge that it’s going to be hard but possible.”
On Sam Bird…
BM: “There are positives and negatives to changing team. He was quite established where he was but he felt that there was a need for a freshen up so he’s gone with his gut to go across to McLaren – a team that I think are starting to prove themselves in Formula E now.
“They’re starting to get some good pedigree under their belts, particularly with Jake Hughes who obviously had a pretty strong season. I think he’s got to look at it from a challenge point of view and think it’s an opportunity to rise to the occasion and build that team. He’s a very experienced driver and having an opportunity to build a historic brand like McLaren in the world of Formula E is big.”
AM: “I think Sam needed to move. I think his time had come at Jaguar, for many reasons. You don’t go to bed fast and then wake up slow. The circumstances were very difficult for him. He had contact with his teammate last season and that then puts you into a position where sometimes you’re actually a little bit too nervous, and you’re not aggressive enough, because you don’t want to get into that situation again.
“I think it’s a reset and it’s back to zero, and then he can start to build up again. But it was clear at the end of the year, it wasn’t that he didn’t have the pace, it’s just that everything he did at times seemed to just go in the wrong direction. I felt for him, really.
“He’s been in the fight for so many titles, he’s gotten down to the wire and into the last race of the season with a chance of it. So you don’t have that capability and then suddenly lose it but the circumstances have got to be right with everything. And that includes your team, your team-mate, your engineer, the confidence within the environment, and I think it broke down last year. It’s a reset.”
KC: “His experience will be invaluable. He’s been around the block. He’s grown up, he’s mature, he’s calm, he’s pretty level-headed. He is quite self-critical which should help. I think they had a year where they had flashes of promise but they didn’t quite get the championship result.”
On Nyck de Vries…
BM: “Formula 1 is clearly brutal from the fact that he went in there having won Formula 2, having won Formula E, with huge pedigree and a good track record in motorsport, and half season later, he is booted out. He’s had a rough ride and maybe some would say a little bit too harsh, but that’s the world that we live in in motorsport. These decisions are brutal, but they happen all the time in motorsport. He will probably feel like he has a point to prove but equally he has won this championship before.
“I hope he comes back as, if anything, more of a rounded driver and he should look at what happened in Formula One and try and take positives out of it – he would have grown as a driver because of that experience. If he can find a way to utilise that Formula One experience that he’s had, combined with the Formula E knowledge that he’s got, I think he’ll be right up there in the mix from the get-go.”
NS: “I’m hoping that Nyck isn’t too scarred from what happened in Formula 1 and how it went, and how he was treated. I’m hoping that coming back into Formula E he’ll have that kind of nice, warm, fuzzy feeling because we are a bit of a family who don’t have that sort of closed-off approach. Everyone, for example, shares catering together and it’s a community between the teams and one which is very close.
“So hopefully, he’ll come back to FE feeling quite positive. I don’t think he does have a point to prove. He’s already got that trophy and he’s just going to want to perform and show everyone what he’s got. I think maybe he’ll be putting a bit of pressure on himself in Mexico City to perform because he hasn’t properly raced in Gen3, so that’s going to be new for him but also he knows the series very well.”
AM: “He won the championship a couple of years ago. I think we do know what he can do. I think him and Edo [Mortara] have got a bit of an uphill struggle at Mahindra, it’s quite clear that Mahindra is not the strongest package. But they are building it for the future more than necessarily season 10. So it’s a different mentality but he’s fast, he’s aggressive, he’s determined, he has everything that you want to be in a driver.”
KC: “Mahindra would have been late with the power train and they’ve had some pretty substantial changes over the winter in terms of the structure of the team to new drivers so there’s lots of changes there. I think that it’s a bit of an unknown at this stage, so we have to see when we get into the races.
“I think [he’s got a point to prove.] Obviously his reputation took a little bit of a battering, in F1. He’s got the WEC programme too so he’s going to be a busy boy.”
On more purpose built tracks joining the calendar…
BM: “I think it’s credit to the way the technology’s gone in terms of the Gen3 car, the speeds that car is now able to do and the innovation and the years of hard work the series has put in since. I think that now allows them the opportunity to race on purpose-built circuits and entertain crowds in that scenario. I think when the cars were a little bit slower, the street circuit was kind of needed to provide some action in some circumstances.
“But I think now, with the way the championship’s progressed and developed, I think they’ve earned the right to say this is a pure racing championship, these are racing cars, and they’re able to go out there provide the same sort of top speeds as Formula One cars and really put on a show.
“I think it is beneficial for the championship that they can go and compete at tracks where other motorsport categories have been competing for years and do just as good a job.”
NS: “Obviously, the sort of the original DNA of Formula E was street tracks but as with all new products, things change and Formula E has evolved to include more race tracks, and I think it’s just going to add a level of complexity and I think, in a way, it will actually keep the championships alive rather than maybe having just one front runner that does well, because if we’ve got lots of circuits with completely different characteristics, they it could work to some team strengths than others. And I think it gives us more to talk about and it gives the drivers more to challenge them. You actually get much more of a rounded season rather that something repetitive and that’s a good thing.
“These tracks have proper run-offs so if we see an incident their might not be a red flag and that means we’ll see more wheel-to-wheel racing. I’m excited for it and going to new places is always good.”
AM: “I always liked street racing as a principle, because you are taking the racing to the cities to the people and we could do it because it was electric. I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the fact that it sort of was a bit of a roll of the dice, there was a lot of Las Vegas moments, without doubt.
“But with the evolution of the championship and the evolution of the cars, then you can on occasions drop into a different environment. We already did that a few years ago in Mexico. Mexico is a perfect example of a circuit in a city and I wouldn’t say the racing was anything but good. And so it depends very much on the circuit. I wouldn’t say that you shouldn’t consider one or the other. I think it very much depends on the track itself, and also the evolution of the car.”
KC: “There’s a balancing act to be struck. I think the street tracks have been the USP in some ways, by being able to take the sport to the middle of cities and run in cases like that. But I think you’ve also you think like the race in Portland was actually quite good fun. The peloton style racing was actually quite good fun to watch. It was different.
“I think going back to Shanghai and China is important. When you zoom out and look at the global context of EVs, China’s an incredibly important place. There’s so many Chinese EV manufacturers. So I think in some ways, you have to be in China. And if that meant going to permanent tracks, so be it. I think it’s really it’s more important to be there. Same as the US. I think it’s a good to have a foothold. China and the US are the two most important EV markets.”
Formula E starts its 10th season in Mexico on January 13th live on TNT Sports.
