The FIA Formula E World Championship is days away from commencing its 11th season, and Motorsport Week has sat down with its CEO, Jeff Dodds.
Having taken over midway through Season 9, Dodds’ task is an unenviable one, taking charge of a motorsport series that is hugely exciting and with huge potential, but to some, one that is still a niche, and still suffers from snobbery from a mass of Formula 1 fans.
But in the off-season, there was the release of figures which saw FE’s fan engagement had grown, numbers that Dodds is particularly very proud of, and with good reason.
Given that FE began as an idea scribbled on a restaurant napkin 13 years ago, and became a reality only 10 years ago, it is quite staggering that, despite the naysayers, it has further growth potential.
“I’m not a big look-back kind of guy,” Dodds says, “but I think you make a good point, which is 10 years ago, there was exactly zero fans of Formula E. You know, it didn’t exist.
“And it’s gone from zero to effectively 374 million fans on average in the space of 10 years, and you add into that two disrupted seasons from COVID, it’s really eight full seasons from a standing start and it’s grown to 374 million.
“So my view is we have great momentum and we’ve got great growth traction, particularly in the areas that matter, which is fan-based growth and audience growth.
“The number of people exposed to the sport globally and watching it and the number of people that actively consider themselves a fan and have an interest in it. I’ve laid out some goals, which we’ve shared with the teams and all of our partners out to 2030, and if we achieve those goals, we’d effectively be the second biggest motorsport in the world.
“So within six years to go from being largely the fourth biggest, fifth biggest, after Formula One, MotoGP, World Rally Car, and then us at fourth. We overtook IndyCar recently to be ahead of MotoGP, which has just over 500 million fans globally. So that’s our ambition.
“There’s nothing I’ve seen in the 18 months I’ve been here that tells me that’s not achievable, but to deliver that, we have to tick all the boxes and the boxes are incredible racing, so we need very competitive racing.
“We need to continually demonstrate that cars are getting faster and technology is getting better, which is why your point on pit boost and technology like that is really important, because we need to be seen to be evolving.
“This car on the track now [GEN3 Evo] is the fastest single-seater motor car in any FIA championship, and in two years’ time, it’s a whole new car, Generation 4, so there’s loads of stuff in the pipeline. More broadcast deals with big, successful broadcasters around the world. More digital disruption, more social activity, higher-profile drivers.
“All of this stuff has to come together to deliver the growth. But last year we delivered 25% growth in fan base and 35% growth in audience. I’d love to do the same again this year, just keep showing that momentum.”
‘Compelling’ mid-gap event promised by FE
Given FE’s nascent rise, I know all too well that its core fanbase are very passionate about it, and as a consequence, they are not shy to voice their criticisms and concerns about areas they aren’t so keen on. Dodds is rationally accepting of this, aware that much of the criticism lately has been aimed at the fact there is, for the second season running, a long gap between races, with weekends three and four bridged by a two-month gap.
“I would say we value every fan of Formula E, Dodds says, “and as I’m a fan of other sports, every fan is entitled to an opinion. And it’s a valid opinion.
“So I would never say anyone’s opinion is unfair. They can say whatever they want about the championship, and it’s not their job to understand the complexity behind the scenes.
“They just want to experience the product and we should deliver them a great experience; you’re completely right though – we had 17 races a year and they were all on fixed circuits that could be booked two years in advance, largely I wouldn’t need half the team I’ve got.
“But also all we would be aspiring to be is another version of Formula 1 or another version of IndyCar. We’re trying to be something slightly different to that and that’s where we set our stall out.”
Dodds, as already published by Motorsport Monday magazine after the Madrid test – the rearrangement from flood-torn Valencia which Dodds describes as “awe-inspiring” – reveals to us that the gap will be filled by an as-of-yet unannounced special event.
“We haven’t announced what happens in the middle of that period, but there won’t be an eight-week gap.
“We will put something smack bang hopefully in the middle of that, so that it’s a four-week period gap, which is something we’re quite used to in Formula E.
“The challenge for me is in that gap that was created, and I think people know why it was created, right?
“I know we probably haven’t said it publicly, but we had a very strong plan to go and race in Thailand. They were very keen. We were very keen.
“They had a change in leadership in Thailand, which means there’s a lot of process stuff to go through, which meant we couldn’t make the timings. Doesn’t mean we won’t race there in the future, by the way, because we still both have a real appetite to race in Thailand. So the challenge falls to me, which is I’ve got two choices.
“Do I just fill the gap with anything? And that could be I go and book a fixed circuit. It’s not particularly strategic, costs us a load of money, teams aren’t particularly excited by it, the fans aren’t particularly excited by it, it doesn’t really drive audience or fan engagement, but I can say there’s no gap.
“Or do I take the opportunity to pivot now that we’ve got a gap and test something really compelling in the middle of it? We’ve chosen the latter. So we’ve chosen not to just go and fill the space for the sake of it, but to do something really compelling.
“Now, we haven’t announced it yet, but I think in a matter of weeks we probably will have announced it, and I hope when you see it you’ll think that’s a fun, exciting, disruptive way of trying to grow the fanbase.”
New doubleheaders shows FE is ‘in good health’
Dodds also points out that there are many other reasons for fans to be excited, notably the new American venue at Miami Homestead Speedway and the inclusion of double-headers in Tokyo and Monaco.
“I’m pretty sure traditional motorsport fans would love to have 25 weekends a year and for them all to be single races at locations and we move on. You know, we’re a net zero from day zero sport. We have a key pillar of sustainability.
“We like to do things slightly differently. We’re also a growing sport, so we have to look at efficiency of where we race, so doubleheaders are good because they’re very efficient, but they’re also great because we get to do two races without the carbon footprint and carbon impact of travelling to another destination, which we take very seriously.
“I think what’s key across the doubleheader is you try and make the races as different as possible so that you get a different driver experience, a different team experience. They can strategise differently.
“Monaco is very exciting for us. Prince Albert II of Monaco has a passion for racing, he also has a massive passion for sustainability, so the fact that he’s allowed us to race twice over a course of a weekend, not been done before, I think is a testament to the standing of the racing series and how it’s perceived by him and by the principality there.
“And the doubleheader in Tokyo… I think we were the first sporting event they’ve ever closed a city for other than the Tokyo Marathon, so the fact they’ve gone in one year from allowing one other sport to race there to now we’ll close it for two days, partly driven by the incredible demand that came out of the public there to come and watch the race.
“Tickets sold out in an hour, so now we’ve quadrupled capacity over those two days, so double the number of grandstands and two days – I think it shows we’re in good health.
“So we’re in a good place. Now we just need to deliver it. I mean, I think all the foundations are there, but we have to continue to deliver on it.”
Potential Pit Boost could ‘create even higher drama’
Since our interview took place, there is still no definite word on whether the longstanding Pit Boost idea will go ahead this season. It was tested in Madrid with varying degrees of success, but Dodds is keen on it going ahead.
“I’m sure your audience understand this fully, but with the championship, as in us, the promoters, the FIA who oversee the sporting format, the teams, the drivers, the fans, we all want something slightly different out of different changes to the championship, so the FIA will be looking at this and they’ll be saying, ‘what’s the impact on sporting format? Can it be delivered safely on the circuit?’ And they’re fixated on that, and therefore they’re going through high levels of diligence to test the technology.
“As a championship, we’re looking at [if] is this a change that attracts new fans and is compelling for existing fans? Is it something they’re going to watch and see that makes the racing spectacle better for them? If you’re a team, it depends where you are.
“If you’re consistently performing well and winning stuff at the moment, you’re very nervous about any changes because any changes potentially put your success at risk. If you’re a team that’s at the bottom and not doing very well in races, any change that gives you an opportunity to get a point of difference is seen as a welcome change, so if you talk to teams, you get very different views.
“And for drivers, different drivers are more or less risk averse, so I think you get different views from everybody.
“The fans, who are maybe the most important people in the process, they will judge it by what they see, and my personal experience of motor racing, having followed it my entire life is, pit stops create another moment of strategy. Strategy for the team and driver. They can change races, positively or negatively.
“They create moments of high drama and jeopardy. Our pit stops are quite different because in a Formula 1 pit stop, on average, you’re out of action off the circuit for between 20 and 25 seconds for what is a 2.5 second pit stop. I think our cars here, if it goes to plan, will be off the circuit for about 50 seconds.
“And a typical race lap time in Formula E is between a minute and maybe 1 minute 20, something in that window there, so they’re going to come back in at a point which is in a very different place to where the racing action is at the front of the field.
“So I think it’s going to be interesting to follow where cars really are in terms of the pecking order and I think we have high drama in Formula E anyway on the racetrack. I think this is just going to create even higher drama.
“As you know, I have a little bet on in Formula 1 at the moment, which I’ve been following with great interest [Dodds bet £250,000 that Max Verstappen would win the championship, which at the time of the interview, was still undecided]. It’s interesting, the most competitive, certainly second half of the season I’ve seen in Formula 1 that I can remember in recent years, but very strong likelihood it still gets wrapped up with three races to go.
“Whereas in Formula E, we took seven drivers to the last race of the season. I think Pit Boost makes it even more competitive, not less competitive, which I think means there’ll be more teams and more drivers in the mix as we get to the end of the season.”
