McLaren to quit Formula E at end of season

23 comments on “McLaren to quit Formula E at end of season”

1. 

   Red Pill (@redpill)
   25th April 2025, 9:42

   Perhaps a sign of the times for FE ?
   1. 

      T
      25th April 2025, 15:32

      eh, McLaren bought the team from Mercedes and came in as a Nissan customer. It already had an exit strategy before it began competing. Which is fine, focusing on the hyper car entry aligns far better than electric racing for McLaren

      Formula E is the fastest growing both in car development wise and fan growth wise motorsport on the planet. – no it really is, I was doubtful too
      It has six manufacturers committed to it’s Gen 3 regs and five of which have already signed up to its Gen 4 regs.
      McLaren will be missed but FE survived Mercedes leaving after wining both titles back to back. They’ll be fine, they’re already testing the Gen 4 rule set and Dodds, the CEO has already confirmed interested parties.

      it’s extreme e or extreme h it’s called now that you should be worried about
      1. 

         Ideals (@ideals)
         26th April 2025, 7:29

         Your link goes to a news report on a Formula E PR message, so I would take their “engagement” numbers with several teaspoons worth of salt. How you measure “engagement” is completely arbitrary and says very little in actual numbers.

         I always find the best test of popularity is simply going to YouTube and checking view numbers on videos. For instance, for Formula E, their most popular videos are obviously race highlights. The last E-Prix was uploaded 13 days ago and is just shy of 90k viewers. For a video that’s probably embedded a lot on Motorsport related websites. Their other racing videos. On boards and what not, generally do 10k to 15k views. Their general videos like driver interviews are a couple of thousand to 5k views. Where did those hundreds of millions of engaged fans go?

         The way I see it, Formula E is thriving on ideas still. Ideas that promoting electric is beneficial for the marketing departments of manufacturers. But in reality most manufacturers come and go after a few years. Or rather when their first end of commitment comes up. A couple stick around for a bit longer, but a lot go after a few years. If the sport was really such a success, you’d perhaps wonder why that is.

         The second thing that makes it very hard for this sport to thrive is that nobody is looking to broadcast it. To the point that it’s locked behind pay channels for Motorsports that are looking for cheap padding to fill their channels with as Motorsport content is rather limited outside of F1, MotoGP, and IndyCar. All well and good, you might say, at least there’s a place people can watch it, but nobody is going to pay money for something they aren’t vehemently fans of already. That’s a huge leap to take. How are you ever going to build a fan base from behind a pay wall nobody is paying for your content? And how will you sell Mercedes and now McLaren on keeping their name on that team for longer than the original three year contract if their marketing departments aren’t seeing any benefit from running that team?
         1. 

            BasCB (@bascb)
            26th April 2025, 10:31

            Yeah, I would say Formula E has actually stopped growing and just putted on for the last 2-3 years now. It’s initial growth was impressive but by now it just doesn’t have the massive ground up base that sportscar / endurance racing has and it clearly is not F1 level worldwide big.
            1. 

               anon
               26th April 2025, 20:02

               @bascb it likely depends on how exactly you define that level of engagement and measures of popular support. If you were to define it in terms of levels of people following and watching content that is put out on social media by the organisers of those series, then sportscar/endurance racing appears to have a more limited fan base than you might assume.

               By that measure, the IMSA sportscar championship in the USA is less popular than DTM (the figures I’ve seen quoted are about 1.38 million for IMSA and about 1.43 million for DTM), with the WEC then coming next at 1.93 million. By comparison, Formula E came in at about 3.97 million – so, even if you were generous and combined both the IMSA and WEC followers into the same group, giving a combined figure of about 3.3 million on social media, it’d still be some way short of Formula E.

               Now, those figures point towards Formula E still having a limited overall reach – whilst being more popular than IndyCar as well, they were behind the World Rally Championship (6.92 million) and well behind NASCAR (13.56 million), let alone MotoGP or Formula 1 (which were the two highest) – but, at the same time, it pointed towards it being a bit more popular than you suggest too. It’d, overall, suggest a series that, whilst not having as spectacular figures as perhaps it claims, does also seem to have respectable enough figure to not be quite as much of a niche sport as you might think and sits in more of a middle ground.
         2. 

            T
            26th April 2025, 20:19

            i get where you’re coming from i truly do and i want to make it clear Formula E isn’t my favorite motorsport. I tune in when I remember, I don’t even know who’s leading the championship for the current campaign so I’m not out here shilling for it but in no particular order:

            – the best test of popularity is not YouTube views, we don’t know what counts as a view because YouTube has never told us. every single definition you’ve ever seen is pure speculation. but even more importantly they keep changing the definition of what a view is

            – if you want to stick to YouTube views as the “best test of popularity” i’d use ratio of subscribers to views. it’s not perfect but it tells a far far holistic story. When you realize the FE YT channel doesn’t have a million subscribers, the view count and retention makes sense. You’ll often find surprisingly low conversion ratios.

            – if want to look at the health of a YouTube channel look at it’s Social Blade those are raw numbers, YouTube views barely scratch the surface

            – also you’re completely forgetting short form content like TikTok and YouTube Shorts

            – also also, depending on your location, you cannot watch some embedded motorsport videos, they get blocked so a lot of embeds doesn’t hold the weight you think it does. I can’t watch any formula 1 embeds, I’m pretty sure you can’t either and I can sometimes watch fe embeds, maybe you have better luck

            – how you measure engagement isn’t arbitrary there’s a method to it but like I mentioned earlier, the method isn’t public. what is a view defined as, what’s an impression, is engagement comments? ticket sales, merch sales? reposts? hashtags? that’s why you take it all with a grain of salt

            – i also feel like you’ve confused fastest growing with the best. chatgpt is the fasting growing product on this planet but is the best? not even like competing with search or reasoning just as a standalone LLM is it the best? you could a very salient and objective argument that Gemini’s integration makes it a superior product and i wouldn’t stop you.
            – skyrocketing from 10 to 25 in short period of time is different from steadily growing 4 to 75 over a longer period of time.

            – did you bother to find out why the manufactures exited the championship or were your assertions entirely based ‘the way you see things’
            – Mercedes and BMW left because they said they had learnt what they needed to be able to effectively make electric cars. this is true, you can draw a directly line from their to exit to the increase of i (BMW) and EQx (Mercedes) variants in their production cars
            – Renault left to focus on formula 1. we both know how this went
            – Audi left to focus on rallying. They gave the world the RS Q e-Tron and then have pulled back everything to focus on formula 1, apparently this is how Audi motorsports – all or nothing! DTM be damned!!
            – McLaren = WEC hypercar, brand alignment

            – i don’t even know what you’re talking about with nobody looking to broadcast formula e there are major broadcasters offering live Formula E content right now my guy.
            – the days of Formula E being locked “pay channels for Motorsports that are looking for cheap padding to fill their channels with” is evaporating rapidly. You can watch all things formula e for free right now on Roku no account needed if your location permits.

            – all of what you’re saying and insinuating would make perfect sense if the series was stagnant and the teams were actively bleeding money. Do you think Nissan would stay as it hemorrhages a record amount of cash? they’re barely scrapping by on consumer vehicles and you honestly think they’d burn more money racing as though they’re Ferrari? Why would a company like Jaguar sign up if FE is thriving on fumes?
            – could it be rapid turnaround of car development funded by the influx of B2B companies partnering with both the series and teams?
            – perhaps it’s the fact the series is legally obligated to publish it’s books and it’s doing quite well financially?
            – maybe it’s Liberty Global recently purchasing a majority stake in the championship signalling a vote of confidence?
            – could be FE expanding to new venues?
            – or the increase in live viewership during races across the globe?
            – it could be anything who knows, maybe Dodds is secretly paying the teams to be there out of pocket, the do have Saudi PIF money now
      2. 

         Mig29smt
         27th April 2025, 2:53

         Yes, is growing a lot… here’s more evidence. They stopped broadcasting it in Latin America (except brasil). Now they stream for free on YouTube and barely get more than 3000 views each race.
         The numbers of viewership are exaggerated by them.
         To be honest i found it interesting at the beginning but with the seasons, horrible street tracks,awful sound, no slick tires
         ,uninteresting drivers etc i stopped watching. i don’t think they will survive long if they don’t listen their fans who says almost the same things i said.
         1. 

            T
            27th April 2025, 17:01

            like i mention earlier, i’m a disinterested follower
            I had to go back to their website to remember who won the last race, i thought it was oliver but it’s actually pascal. the craziest thing about that race is that pascal didn’t even cross the finish line first

            there is a lot to be desired from the series but if memory serves me right they are listening:
            – Fan Boost is gone per request from the fans
            – The duels qualifying format they introduced is quite neat and solves all traffic problems
            – Attack mode now actually has fangs sending max power to all wheels
            – They’ve also introduced pit stops this season at double header races, it worked quite well in the second race at jeddah

            i’m not asking you to take their numbers as gospel
            I don’t know what methodology Kantar Sport (for TV viewership metrics), Conviva and Hookit (for social media analytics), Google Analytics (for website and app usage) and Potentia Insight (survey) employed to get their numbers

            I am telling you that the numbers (how ever favorably they’ve been presented) do corroborate their claims.
            They’ve manage to surpass indycar and as pointed above by anon, dwarf IMSA and WEC.
            For a new motorsport series that is only 11 years old, this very very good
            Their financials look decent and they generate enough monies to be able to invest themselves
            11 years, and 3.5 chassis is not bad when you consider indycar has been operating and iterating on a 15 year old chassis. They’ve come a long way from having to swap cars mid race because it could complete the race in a relatively short amount of time – that’s where the “fastest growing” claim comes from by the way
            Like i said in my original comment, they’ll be fine
            Personally i think they’ll probably merge with Formula 1 in the future
2. 

   Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
   25th April 2025, 10:18

   ‘Its the future’ like that hydrogen series where rich people drive round the desert to show what happens to fertile land if you drive round on it
3. 

   Doh
   25th April 2025, 13:25

   Don’t watch formula e but it’s probably not a bad thing to get rid of that livery.

   If only the F1 team would run a proper paint scheme instead of a bare black car with a few randomly placed awkward stickers slapped on in a rush.

   Make race cars look like race cars!
4. 

   Dex
   25th April 2025, 15:19

   They aren’t completely. From next year F1 is going to be semi-Formula E anyway, taking the worst from the both worlds.
   1. 

      pcxmac (@pcxmac)
      25th April 2025, 16:44

      pretty much. I am also sure the sprint races are a backdoor to getting people to accept a shorter race format.

      the sooner the technocrats get people stuck on electric cars that can go a couple hundred miles, the sooner they can tax people for just looking at their car.

      There is plenty of oil and natural gas on the planet, some people just want to make more money (by limiting supply) and increase the disparity between the haves and have-nots. And F1 is a vehicle for the ‘investor class’ to see that through.

      Thats why it is very important to mock the rule maker’s stupidity and lies. Because they cannot exist without it.
      1. 

         MurasamaRA300 (@murasamara300)
         25th April 2025, 19:33

         Spot on & +1 for all of this.
      2. 

         MarkWebber (@markwebber)
         26th April 2025, 1:28

         +1
      3. 

         MichaelN
         26th April 2025, 9:21

         The FIA and FOM don’t need to sell the public on short races. They can just decide to do it. Just like the idea to have sprints, round based qualifying, and basically every other rule of the game.

         BEVs can be recharged, increasingly quickly too. It’s not like the range is one off. Owning cars is already taxed in many countries, and that’s been the case for decades. No need for BEVs to introduce this.

         And while there is a lot fossil fuel still to be had, it’s not endless, it’s not becoming any cheaper to get it, and it’s polluting the atmosphere. Plus there are great alternatives, leaving more of the oil and gas for purposes where their use has a meaningful benefit, like airplanes on account of the light weight.
5. 

   AndrewT (@andrewt)
   25th April 2025, 16:14

   It really is strange, as only a couple of weeks ago it was announced that Jaguar team principal James Barclay would join McLaren for the next season, and he’s hardly a nobody in motorsport. It’s also really strange, because they have one of the best powertrains in FE, as Nissan nailed it for this season, and they are clearly a match for Porsche, and it should be the same for next season, as it would be the last year of the Gen3 era. Also don’t forget, that between season 5-8, this used to be the Mercedes works team, winning two driver’s and two team’s titles, however, as McLaren they could only show a single win until now. As far as I know multiple car manufacturers are eyeing an opportunity into FE, taking over McLaren would certainly be an easy way in.
   1. 

      Dave F. (@dave-f)
      25th April 2025, 16:40

      James Barclay would join McLaren *motorsport* team, ie their WEC Hyper-car entry.
      1. 

         AndrewT (@andrewt)
         25th April 2025, 17:25

         I might have overlooked that “little” detail, thank you for the clarification.
         The article stated Barclay would report to Ian James, I just assumed it would be the FE team, but Ian James is in fact the director of motorsport at McLaren Automotive.
6. 

   paulsf1fix
   25th April 2025, 16:50

   Aston Martin should buy the team and Lance should move over….
   1. 

      BasCB (@bascb)
      26th April 2025, 10:32

      THAT is a great idea!
7. 

   Nino Salvatore
   25th April 2025, 19:02

   Guess it takes more than “talent” to win championships
8. 

   Dave
   27th April 2025, 9:14

   Being slightly flippant but I hadn’t realised FE was still going,uch less that McLaren were competing in it
   1. 

      SteveP
      27th April 2025, 21:56

      Mario Kart is still actively played (apparently) so having a real life version still around isn’t that surprising. ;)

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