- New manufacturer regulations have been made public this week with several changes to the criteria for customers of manufacturers from next season onwards.
- Included in these is added tyre allocations for the official tyre manufacturer will now provide 40 sets maximum for the test day allocation. Test days have now been increased from 12 to 16 per homologation (two years).
- Attack charge pit-stop tests return to Formula E this week in London as teams have a mandatory stipulation to test the fast charging infrastructure in the shakedown sessions on Friday afternoon. The Fortescue WAE supplied equipment has been tested sporadically this year with the FIA delaying plans to implement it in to races for the second season running.
- A new company called Penske Autosport Research Labs Ltd has been launched in the UK. The Witney-based business is believed to have been created for special projects and has long-time Penske staffer Nicolas Mauduit registered as an officer in addition to individuals that work for Jay Penske’s media empire in the U.S.
- Formula E Notebook understands that the FIA is again considering hosting a Rookie Test at the Berlin EPrix next summer. This will be in addition to the planned all-female afternoon session at Valencia.
- This test is pencilled in for the Valencia pre-season test at the beginning of November is going ahead and FEN understands names already in the mix for teams to run at the session are F1 Academy drivers Bianca Bustamante and Abi Pulling, as well as FIA WEC LMGT3 Iron Dames Lamborghini driver Michelle Gatting.
- However, Andretti team principal Roger Griffiths told FEN that its Extreme E driver Catie Munnings (who will be on TV presenter duties at ExCeL) won’t be one of those taking part. “While she’s part of the Andretti team, she just doesn’t have the single-seater experience and even with the best will in the world I’m not sure the FIA would grant her a licence because beyond the quick runs she did in Misano, she’s never been in a single-seater.”
- FEN has discovered that 2024 NEOM McLaren rookie hero Taylor Barnard has an option to race with the team for the 2024-25 season. Recent speculation has arisen that Jake Hughes will move on from the team shortly, raising speculation that Barnard might be elevated to the position of partnering Sam Bird at the team in a full-time role. An announcement on NEOM McLaren’s line-up is expected soon after the London EPrixs.
- Hughes is known to have spoken to the Maserati, Envision and Abt Cupra teams in the last few months and believed to have almost concluded his negotiations on where he drives for 2025.
- The driver situation at ERT is believed to still be fluid as Dan Ticktum and Sergio Sette Camara negotiate their positions for next season. Other possibilities at the team are believed to include current Maserati and Nissan drivers Jehan Daruvala and Sacha Fenestraz should they move on from their current respective teams.
- Jaguar TCS Racing tested its new Gen3Evo package at Calafat in Spain at the beginning of July. Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy conducted one day each of running. Nissan was also in attendance with Oliver Rowland in the cockpit.
- Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds told FEN recently that there are back up plans to shuffle the 2024-25 calendar should the anticipated race in Chiang Mai next March not come to fruition.
- “The only credible alternatives are fixed circuit alternatives because you can’t hold street circuits with the need to build and put down TechPro and close down streets, so there are alternatives that we could slot in with our boards permission at fixed circuits,” said Dodds.
- “I really hope for what might be the first time in Formula E’s history, we can deliver on that calendar, including the TBC we have currently.”
- Formula E is looking at how it can maximise its exposure in the off-season with several initiatives having been considered recently, including demonstrations of the Gen3Evo car and technology roadshows.
- “There’s a few things we’ve looked at for doing that, whether that’s demonstration, exhibition, taking the race cars on the road and taking them to different places,” FE’s CEO Jeff Dodds told FEN.
- “Maybe we even use it as a way to encourage cities that are thinking about, or countries, thinking about putting on racing, to kind of bring it and show an interest and start to engage a fan base early,” said Jeff Dodds.
- “The other thing we’re looking at, through Tiziana (Di Giao – Chief Revenue Officer) and her team, is effectively a conference-style roadshow that can travel the world and basically talk about sustainability, to talk about commercial opportunity, talk about technology and innovation, talk about the racing platform, take cars to demonstrate, maybe one or two cars,” concluded Dodds.
- Michael Andretti believes that the current cost cap in Formula E needs to come down. Speaking to FEN in Portland, Andretti said that he was “pushing” for that to happen and that he thought “it needs to come down for a few years until it builds back up to where you can justify.
- “Once the numbers go up then you can justify the spending more. I think right now it’s a little out whack; the spending is here but the justification is here and they need to go that way. So yeah, I’d push for less even. It’s 13 million I think it should be down to around ten million in my opinion,” concluded Andretti.
- Nissan’s Tommaso Volpe believes that the recent acquisition of a majority stake in Formula E by Liberty Media is “very positive.”
- Volpe justified his opinion by adding that the deal will make “the governance easier and the decision-making process easier for Jeff when he talks his board.
- “It will help probably to implement decisions and, whether or not we always agree on these decisions, it doesn’t really matter but definitely to me they will be more efficient in implementing changes, adding projects that can help the sport to grow or decisions on the calendar because all the time when in any company you a simplified governance have, everything is easier in the decision-making process,” said the Nissan TP.
- The Nissan Formula E Team has released a global study demonstrating the ‘desire of young people for a future featuring electric mobility.’
- It was conducted among 6,000 participants aged between 8 and 16 across Brazil, Italy, Japan, Mexico, UK, and US. The results can be viewed video with team drivers Oliver Rowland and Sacha Fenestraz, as well as team principal Tommaso Volpe HERE.
- CEO of Nissan, Makoto Uchida, will make his third appearance at a Formula E race on Sunday. Uchida first visited at the Tokyo EPrix in March and then also appeared at the Berlin races in May. He will spend time with Formula E executives and Nissan guests during his visit.
- Longtime DS Techeetah and DS Penske engineer Clément Ailloud left the team this week. Ailloud explained pointedly on his personal LinkedIn page that his decision was influenced by recent changes at the team: “The spirit is being torn apart so I decided to walk away. I know that the future will be bright and fun somewhere else very soon, I know the kind of people I want to work with, I know that racing and performing can be done with a smile and a family spirit,” he wrote.
- 1998 and 1999 F1 World Champion Mika Hakkinen will visit the Formula E paddock for the first time this weekend.
Header image: Spacesuit Media.
