Formula E tested for four days at Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit this week to pack in some much-needed preparations for the series’ Gen3 era.
Private shakedowns and tests of FE’s third-generation car have been fraught with problems, including heavy crashes, and some considered it crunch time at Valencia for getting things right before the season begins. But it’s not just the car that’s been changed, as the series has switched tyre supplier to Hankook and several teams have also had off-season overhauls. Here’s how each team looks going into 2023:
McLaren
Last year’s champions as Mercedes, the team has been acquired by McLaren over the off-season. It is not being run alongside the Formula 1 operation at the McLaren Technology Centre, but a separate facility in Bicester.
Ian James remains as team principal but the driver line-up is all-new. Rene Rast returns after a year away and Jake Hughes makes his debut. McLaren spent the four-day test getting acquainted with their unfamiliar Nissan hardware.
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Maserati
CEO Susie Wolff and team principal Jerome d’Ambrosio have left, and James Rossiter has arrived from Techeetah to take d’Ambrosio’s place, while on the driver front Edoardo Mortara remains after winning five races in the past two seasons but Lucas di Grassi is gone and Maximilian Guenther has taken his seat.
It’s already been a good start for the new signing as he was fastest overall in testing after topping multiple sessions.
Jaguar
Like Venturi, the only team to win four races last season. But they were only fourth in the teams’ standings, and Mitch Evans missed out on the title too.
But it’s all about continuity at Jaguar, as Evans embarks on his seventh campaign with the team and Sam Bird – who has only missed two races in FE history – stays on to try to bounce back from a disappointing 2022.
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Envision
It’s not only a new car that Envision has to learn for 2023, as the team end a four-year spell as a customer team for Audi powertrains and now become Jaguar’s customer so have to understand the ins-and-outs of their powertrain package.
Although Robin Frijns has been lost to a rival team, Envision have more than covered their losses by bringing in Sebastien Buemi as his replacement. Buemi holds several FE records, including the most victories, and his team mate Nick Cassidy claimed his first win last season.
Andretti
After using an old BMW powertrain in 2022 and still being competitive, Andretti hopes to be back at the front full-time next year as it ties up with Porsche. The arrangement includes powertrains heading Andretti’s way, while their reserve driver David Beckmann gets shared with Porsche.
Oliver Askew has lost his drive with the team after a single season and there’s another Porsche acquisition as Andre Lotterer joins from the German brand to be Jake Dennis’s team mate.
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Porsche
Only once in the last 25 races has Porsche appeared on the podium, and it has signed 2019-20 champion Antonio Felix da Costa to try to bring more consistency to its results now Lotterer has left for Andretti.
Porsche’s return to prototype sportscars may take up resources and people that may have otherwise been directed towards FE, but the signs are that the team is on the up after a tricky three seasons so far in FE.
Mahindra
Oliver Rowland remains but Alexander Sims is gone, replaced by Di Grassi. Jehan Daruvala has also joined the fold as reserve driver.
But the biggest change at the team is arguably the replacement of long-time team principal Dilbagh Gill with Frederic Bertrand. He brings valuable experience having been the FIA’s head of Formula E and innovative sports activities before joining Mahindra.
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Nissan
As well as formally shedding the ‘EDAMS’ identity, Nissan has replaced both its drivers, Norman Nato and Sacha Fenestraz arriving in place of Sebastien Buemi and Guenther.
NIO
Sergio Sette Camara, who contributed Dragon/Penske’s sole points finish last year, arrives at NIO alongside Dan Ticktum, who had little to cheer about in his first season as a Formula E driver in 2022.
While NIO has largely brought up the rear of the field in recent seasons, it has made positive noises about the potential of its Gen3 hardware.
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Abt Cupra
Abt is back, now as a Mahindra customer, having previously collaborated with Audi. The relationship with Mahindra appears to run deeper than a typical manufacturer-customer set-up, however, Abt providing some technical support to its supplier.
The experienced proven race-winner Robin Frijns takes over on the driving side, partnered by Nico Muller, back in FE after a year away.
DS Penske
The final big change of the off-season in Formula E is the relocating of the DS Automobiles brand to Penske, as Techeetah bows out. The second Stellantis brand in the series alongside Maserati boasts an enviable driver line-up featuring reigning champion Stoffel Vandoorne and two-times title-winner Jean-Eric Vergne.
But the hardware will have to be a significant improvement to propel the team which finished last in 2022 to serious contention when the new season begins in Mexico next month.
Formula E
- Jaguar’s team work gives Evans and Cassidy Monaco one-two
- Formula E unveils 200mph, 4WD Gen3 Evo, boasting 0-60 time 30% quicker than F1
- Wehrlein wins second Misano race after Rowland’s last lap heartache
- Da Costa disqualified from first Misano race, handing Rowland win
- Da Costa becomes sixth different winner in six rounds in first Misano race
Browse all Formula E articles
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
17th December 2022, 14:00
Looks like a rental kart…
The Edge (@the-edge)
17th December 2022, 14:17
Could they get any more ugly…?
amian
18th December 2022, 12:10
Well, we’ve seen much uglier F1 cars 10-15 years ago.
Watching an ugly car race is like watching a fugly woman dance. I can’t fathom why there wasn’t a marketing guy to tell the designer team that having an ugly car isn’t helpful in promoting the series.
S
18th December 2022, 12:23
But if the racing is good, what they look like actually doesn’t seem so important.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
17th December 2022, 14:19
Those look so futuristic, and totally like something anyone with an ounce of understanding of aerodynamics would sketch.
André
18th December 2022, 0:18
I think Adrian Newey would have designed a much more elegant version of this monstrosity.
Adrian Hancox (@ahxshades)
18th December 2022, 13:24
Blindfolded !
Olivier
17th December 2022, 15:40
Those cars look short, light, agile, and very raceable. Ideal for street circuits.
I wonder if it would it be possible for F1 to develop a short and a long chassis for the season? The one size fits all does not suit all circuits, often to the detriment of racing. Historic circuits like Zandvoort would also not be forced to change the nature of their circuit layout (to accommodate for the long form modern F1 cars).
Imre (@f1mre)
18th December 2022, 8:01
There is no need for a “long chassis”.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
17th December 2022, 16:38
I quite like them. They certainly look a bit lighter than the older cars, less of the unnecessary extra bodywork.
XV
17th December 2022, 20:22
Agree. Some of the elevated shots make the cars look stumpy, but the cars look pretty cool from a lower perspective. There is an edgy minimalism that makes the cars look quite clean and modern. It seems that the aesthetics are used to signal a break with tradition as much as the electric powertrain itself.
thegamer23
17th December 2022, 16:45
They look really compact!
They’re lighter, short & relatively little in size even compared to Gen 2, wich should only be good for racing.
Basically the opposite route of F1, wich are getting longer each season & heavier.
Dani B. Molina (@esmiz)
17th December 2022, 19:08
Aesthetically, I don’t dislike the appearance of the car, if anything, the tires are the ones that make me wince. They seem like a “glob” that doesn’t match the rest of the car.
As for what matters, laptimes, do we know what times they have done?? Or are they still afraid that we will compare them with F3 and F2?
S
18th December 2022, 7:40
Why would you compare them with F2 and F3?
They are intentionally completely different.
Coventry Climax
18th December 2022, 10:15
Eh, because motorracing is about going around a track faster than the competition? And when push comes to shove, any type of competition?
Eh, because it would be interesting to see where they stand compared to ‘the old’ technology? (Mind you, there actually were electrical cars even before there were ice-cars, but you get what I mean.)
Eh, because in the past, they were ‘acused’ of being no faster than the F2 or 3 cars?
Eh, not mentioned explicitly, but implicitly, it might also be interesting to see if they’ve made any progress regarding laptimes?
And many, many more answers to your ‘why’.
It’s not like we’re talking about a difference, like, between rally and racetrack. Or trucks and carts.
These are both open wheel, single seater, race-track cars.
S
18th December 2022, 11:40
You be sure to tell me when F2, F3 and Formula E all compete together on the same track, at the same time, in the same race.
Accused? It’s a fact. They aren’t even trying to be faster than F2 cars. They aren’t even trying to compete against F3 cars on performance, because they are designed for a completely different style of circuit racing.
Formula E is Formula E. Not ‘eF3.’
You’d think the body styling would convey that message clearly enough.
Progress? They are faster than FE Gen2, if that’s what you mean. That’s the only comparison that matters. The specs show it, even before the cars actually see a race track.
Faster isn’t necessarily ‘better’ anyway – especially not in circuit racing. See F1 for proof.
Yeah, So is F1. So is Indycar. So are Legends cars.
Enjoy their differences and individual uniqueness.
Coventry Climax
18th December 2022, 13:24
Oh boy. You really don’t want to understand do you? Just for the sake of it?
Who said that? Laptimes are frequently compared though.
You get one guess as to why the word was between quotes to start with.
But even so, ‘not even trying to compare’ is a narrative. The moment they invent the ‘next gen ultra hyper super battery’ and start racing with it, faster than F1, they’re sure as hell gonna tell it to F1’s face.
Do I mind? Not one bit. But it is the nature of matters.
Mercedes, the team that makes no mistakes, thought their last year’s car was fast too, until they ran it on track. So, comparing actual times is much more useful than just comparing the specs and saying, based on that, they should be faster. Faster is better the way I said it, as in overall time around a track.
As the owner of a 570kg sportscar, I’m well aware that there’s a bit more to racing than just engine power.
Don’t need F1 to prove that for me. To me, F1 has stopped being the benchmark quite sometime already, by the way. By the sound of your standards, it wouldn’t even matter if this gen FE cars is slower than last year’s.
I was already referring to F 1-2-3 whatever style of cars compared to FE. Anyway, how is coming up with more examples a way to disprove anything?
Excuse me? Who said I don’t? And who the heck are you to say I should?
S
18th December 2022, 13:48
I totally understane.
I just think it’s a complete waste of time comparing apples and broccoli.
That would be FE’s ‘narrative.’
I don’t think the FIA would like them to compete directly either – on any level.
If only technical development worked that way.
Whatever, they wouldn’t be competing directly with F1, they be using it differently – because it is different.
Mercedes’ estimates (not facts) were wrong, because their tools weren’t as accurate as they thought they were.
In F1, (engine) output and mass are known, and aero is largely up to each team to determine. When a car only exists in virtual form and a real-world 1/3 scale model, assumptions are all they have.
In FE’s case, the entire car was changed. Battery spec was improved, motor output was increased, mass was reduced and physical size also shrank.
It’s pretty clear which one gives a known real-world outcome, barring a complete technical stuff-up in engineering and manufacture.
Only in a time trial. And even then, it’s entirely subjective.
I’d much rather watch a mid-90’s F1 car than a current one – it may be slower, but it’s far more interesting, on many levels. Driver input, involvement, reactivity and workload, for starters.
Nope. I want good racing, and I’m not at all concerned about whether the cars are half a second faster than the old ones. They could be 5 seconds slower for all I care.
If the racing product is good, then the cars are good.
If you are going to compare F2/3 with FE because they are all open-wheelers, then why wouldn’t you go the whole way and compare them with everything else that is an open-wheeler? I mean, you want to compare, don’t you?
You don’t seem to want them to be different – you seem to want them to be directly comparable. As in, if they were to be put into the same circumstances, how would one compare to the others…
Fact is, they won’t ever be in the same circumstances, because they aren’t designed to be. They are intentionally designed to not be comparable…..
MichaelN
18th December 2022, 17:10
Because speed matters. If viewers cared mostly about ‘racing’, karting would be the most popular motorsport as it is for participants. In such a situation, few people would bother paying to watch F1 as its ‘racing’ is often among the worst of any series (and that’s even before you start talking its low driving standards). But in practice its the other way around. One of the more odd things about most motorsports is that so many series race with barely any live audience; from national Touring Cars and F3 to regional GT3 and even some Indycar and WEC races.
S
19th December 2022, 5:08
Speed is certainly fascinating to some, but F1 is much more than just fast cars. It also just happens to be the series that does the most marketing, drums up the most hype for itself, travels to the largest number of locations to provide local events for the largest number of people, and doesn’t have drivers and team managers but celebrities instead…..
And that’s without any of the technical stuff that differentiates it from other racing series, nor the long history of it.
I’m sure we all know that F1 could be much, much faster if that’s what they wanted – but it would simply gain nothing from it.
I don’t find that odd at all. Most events that are made for broadcast have a much larger off-site audience than local. Especially when they are charging F1 prices at the gate.
Modern F1 lacks atmosphere so badly that it’s better to watch on TV than it is to attend the actual event, anyway. Add the hooligan crowds that do turn up regularly now, and it’s become a better place to not be.
kpcart
19th December 2022, 5:42
the times have been released, same times as GP3 in testing. about 4 seconds a lap off f2 record lap (this was only testing).
MichaelN
17th December 2022, 21:18
For cars that race close together on small tracks, sticking with this Formula 3-ish car design seems odd.
They don’t need that front wing, and they don’t actually need to see the tyres to be able to navigate the circuit. The tracks aren’t a bunch of cones like in Formula Student. Plus the open wheels are an aerodynamic disaster, which is an odd choice for a series promoting electric engines and more sustainable transportation in general. They waste a lot of energy pushing those wheels through the air.
Something more like those nimble little Radical Sportscars would seem far preferable. But they seem very invested in making a ‘formula’ car look ‘cool’.
kpcart
19th December 2022, 5:44
it isnt really a formula car. a formula car is rear wheel drive with an engine in the back. this is an electric car. you really have hatred in you for a series i bet you have never watched. Get used to how they look, enjoy the racing and you wont be so angry and argumentative all the time.
PeterG
17th December 2022, 21:58
I won’t say they are ugly but they are certainly some of the least visually appealing race cars I’ve ever seen.
They kinda look like the cars you would see in some of the ‘F1’ video games 20-25 years ago that didn’t have the official F1 license and so had to create cars that looked a bit like F1 cars without looking like any of the actual F1 cars.
S
18th December 2022, 7:42
I’m just gonna say it.
I think these care are pretty unattractive – but still better than F1.
Coventry Climax
18th December 2022, 10:19
Ah, here’s your own comparison to F1-type cars! Compare aesthetics, but not speed? Funny.
S
18th December 2022, 11:49
‘F1-type’ cars are designed to look (and perform) like F1-type cars…
FE cars are designed to look (and perform) like FE cars.
Yeah, funny that.
I stopped being fascinated simply by speed when I was a child…
Coventry Climax
18th December 2022, 13:45
I hardly ever agree with what you say, S, and vice versa. But that’s OK; different people, different opinions.
But this?
I suggest you get a good night’s sleep, possibly preceded by a royal .. with the partner of your choice, come back here to read it all again and then comment.
S
18th December 2022, 14:04
I read it again.
I’m cool with it.
Not sure what you are so upset about though.
Maybe you think it’s wrong to value a highly competitive, driver-sensitive, good quality racing product over merely a fast(er) car…? In a circuit racing series….. Where increasingly higher speeds are known to be inversely proportional to racing quality….. And where ‘gimmicky’ and ‘artificial’ measures tend to need to be taken to reduce racing purity in order to restore racing quality…..
If I just wanted to see fast cars, I’d probably go to the dragway instead. 10000hp blows F1 away any day.
But yeah…
petebaldwin (@)
19th December 2022, 11:52
Can you two please have another completely ridiculous argument. It’s been really funny reading them. I can give you a subject to argue about if that makes it any easier?
S
19th December 2022, 13:35
I’m in :)
Sergey Martyn
18th December 2022, 7:59
Guiness book of world records:
The ugliest race cars ever made are Formula E Gen 3.
They look like insects, designers watched too many spiderman movies.
Imre (@f1mre)
18th December 2022, 8:04
The size and weight of the cars make them appealing. I may give FE another go.
Sergey Martyn
18th December 2022, 8:42
Google Aelia acuminata and you’ll see from where the designers of these monstrosities took their inspiration…
kpcart
19th December 2022, 5:40
I like the look of these cars, and they are getting faster. the times at the test are similar to gp3 and not far behind f2.