In the first part of an exclusive interview with Motorsport Week, the owner of famed British manufacturer Lola has said that entering Formula E was a “no-brainer” for the company, as it makes its return to top level motorsport.
Till Bechtolsheimer could be described as the saviour of one of Britain’s most recognisable manufacturers. A US-based British businessman and racing driver, Bechtolsheimer found out through reading Motorsport Magazine that Lola’s assets were available, and swiftly bought them, bringing back Lola from what was its second bankruptcy.
Its next step was to find a motorsport competition in which it could make its comeback, and with the right team in place – including former F1 tech supremo and Techeetah boss Mark Preston – Formula E was the destination.
In collaboration with Japanese giants Yamaha, it took manufacturing control of the existing ABT team, and took delivery of a GEN3 Evo car in April of last year.
Bechtolsheimer told Motorsport Week that FE and its trailblazing nature was what made it the ideal series for Lola to start in.
“There’s a few things that are attractive about Formula E for Lola as it relates to Lola’s broader plans,” he said.
“Really, as Lola, we want to be a leader in sustainable motorsport. Why sustainable motorsport? Because I think motorsport serves two purposes. On the one hand, it needs to be an entertainment sport.
“It needs to entertain people, otherwise it shouldn’t exist, but it also needs to act as a platform for innovation for the broader automotive and mobility space.
“And the broader automotive and mobility space is pretty focused on decarbonising and becoming more sustainable, and so that’s where motorsport needs to go as well.
“Our focus is across the kind of three obvious buckets within sustainability at the moment – electrification, hydrogen, sustainable fuels and materials.
“And when you look at electrification, which is probably the most important of the three in the here and now, Formula E is at the pinnacle of that, so it very much checks that box.”
Bechtolsheimer revealed that its work on the FE project has enabled them to “develop some cornerstone IP [intellectual property] that I think has a huge amount of transferability and relevance beyond just Formula E,” adding: “so a lot of what we’ve designed for the current Formula E car, and that’s continuing into GEN4, is done with half a mind of what we could use that for in other championships as well.
“It doesn’t really matter what form of motorsport you’re looking at – if it’s high level international motorsport, it’s got some electrification component or hybrid component to it and I think Formula E is at the epicentre of some really core technology, so it made a lot of sense for us to do that.
“And then when we were given the opportunity to partner with Yamaha to allow us to do that in a way that’s properly resourced, just kind of made it a no-brainer for us.”
Tri-nation supergroup showing cohesion in Formula E project
“It’s a big part of why I wanted to partner with an existing team rather than start the team from scratch, because we’ve got our hands full as Lola focussing on delivering this car.
“We’re the first new manufacturer, I think, in five years or so into Formula E, and so we’re playing catchup to everyone else and that’s what we want to focus Lola’s resources on.
“And so we wanted to partner with an existing kind of established group at one of the most experienced, I think one of the most respected operators, not just on Formula E grid, but in motorsport, so they’re [ABT] kind of a perfect partner for us.
“In terms of how it’s been integrating, I think it’s been really, really positive experience so far. It’s not easy to take a group of Lola guys based out of the UK, a group of ABT guys based out of Germany, and a group of Yamaha guys largely based out of Japan and throw them all together and expect it to be a well-oiled machine day one, but I think we’re getting there – we’re getting there really, really quickly, and the interaction is usually positive.
“It was actually in Jarama, I remember this very noticeable moment where we were having an issue with the bleeding the system on the car and the Lola guys were talking about it, and suddenly the ABT mechanics joined the conversation and started giving their input on it, and then we grabbed the Yamaha guys.
“It turns out one of the Yamaha guys embedded in our team is one of Yamaha’s biggest experts on this particular issue and suddenly there was all three groups kind of all stood around the car, collaborating on how to best solve it, and you could just see this transition from three groups turning into kind of a single team.
“It’s only race two for us here, but it’s already feeling like a really cohesive group of people.”
Lola’s heritage might reach old school ‘petrolheads’
Lola is following a growing number of big racing brands that are part of the FE grid, such as McLaren, Andretti and Penske, which, to some, might be a further legitimisation of the sport, something that Bechtolsheimer is hopeful of, and, using the organisation of the all-female test in Jarama as a guide, Lola’s reach is already going far.
“I hope so. I mean, I guess you’d have to ask them really on what the impact has been.
“But when Formula E announced the female driver lineups for each team at the female test in Spain, what the response was in terms of number of views and so on for each of those announcements, I think the Lola announcement outperformed the second highest team by over ten to one, and I’m not exactly sure why that is.
“I think part of it’s because where the new kids on the block, there’s interest around our entry; I think part of it is because I think Lola’s brand is very powerful in Japan – Miki [Koyama, its choice for the test] was a Japanese driver; we have a Japanese partner in Yamaha – there are lots of reasons for it, but I think part of it as well is there is this real love for the Lola brand amongst motorsport enthusiasts, and I think the typical Lola fan is not necessarily the same as the typical Formula E fan.
“So I think my hope is that it encourages some of the – I’ll use the word deliberately – “petrolheads” like myself to actually give Formula E a chance, because I’ll have to admit, up until me taking on Lola and Formula E becoming part of our strategy, it wasn’t a championship I was actually that focused on myself as a fan, as an enthusiast, and I’ve been blown away by how exciting the racing is and the level at which the technology is being developed within this championship.
“I think it’s really second only to Formula 1, despite the fact that there’s so many common components, and my hope is that Lola and the brand that it has can bring that type of audience to this championship.”
In the second part of our exclusive interview, Bechtolsheimer talks about the driver line-up of Lucas di Grassi and Zane Maloney, as well as what Lola may compete in next
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