Here and Now……
The São Paulo EPrix will be first time that a race venue has been used in the same calendar year for an event (excluding the Berlin sextet of races in August 2020) over the 11 season history of Formula E. The event is known officially as the 2024 São Paulo EPrix meaning that officially there have been two 2024 São Paulo EPrixs in 2024!
Teams have received a three hour time slot on Thursday from 15:30 until 18:30, for work on wheels ‘such as weighing of all tyres, marking the tyres with race number and set number, collecting all FIA barcode numbers and documenting, setting the correct pressure for overnight storage.’ All tyre work has to be completed ‘in the working lane of the pitlane’.
Each Competitor has been reminded by the FIA that they are ‘only allowed to have one remote garage(operational room) outside the confines of the circuit. This remote garage/s is the only external source for assistance with data analysis and strategy development allowed for Competitors. Any other assistance related to those matters provided by an external source or a third party by any means is forbidden during the time period defined below’ read an official bulletin.
No Competitor may have more than 6 persons assisting the racing team, in its remote garage from ‘1 hour before the start of the first practice session (or Shakedown if scheduled) of each Competition and until 3 hours after the start of the race (last race in case of double-headers competitions).’ However, additional personnel can be ‘allocated to the remote garage/s, in addition to the 6 persons, with a corresponding reduction in the same amount of operational staff of the same category working at the circuit.’
The rules makers have also clarified that during the “Duels” in the Qualifying Practice Session, following the application of Article 33.7.f of the Sporting Regulations, the restrictions to switch to the “4-Wheel Drive Mode”must be done in accordance with the restrictions of application of the 350kW power activation.
The switch to maximum power (350 kW) cannot be activated before the last sector of the out lap. ‘Therefore, the switch to the “4-Wheel Drive Mode” is equally forbidden before the last sector of the out lap.’
Scot Elkins, the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship Race Director, will miss the upcoming São Paulo E-Prix for personal reasons. Marek Hanaczewski, permanent ABB FIA Formula E World Championship Deputy Race Director, will hold the Race Director role for Brazil whilst Benoit Dupont, current Head of Circuit Operations in Formula E and Sporting Matters in WEC, will support him as Deputy Race Director. Elkins will return in his position at the Mexico E-Prix onwards on Jan 11.
Super Stats
São Paulo is the 133 Formula E race, with Lucas di Grassi the only driver to have entered all 133, although he started 132 after the Mahindra team’s withdrawal from the 2023 Cape Town EPrix. Jean-Eric Vergne has the greatest number of consecutive starts with this his 131st EPrix after making his debut at Punta del Este in December 2014.
Lola’s first International race since Rebellion Racing lined up at Le Mans with a pair of LMP1 cars in 2013, will take place this Saturday. An entry bearing Lola’s name actually hasn’t been seen in a major international championship since the 1989 International Formula 3000 season when it ran Italian pair Enrico Bertaggia and Mauro Martini in a one off entry at the season opening Silverstone race.
Nick Cassidy and Mitch Evans are eating away at Felix Rosenqvist’s best percentage of wins stat. The Kiwi’s are within striking distance of the Swede’s three wins from 25 starts (12% strike rate). Cassidy has seven victories from 63 starts (11.11%), while Evans has 12 from 111 (10.8%).
Reigning champion Pascal Wehrlein has finished every race since the Season 9 São Paulo E-Prix (27 races in a row). If the Porsche driver finishes on Saturday he will have the second longest finishing streak in Formula E history, and only three behind the record held by Robin Frijns.
Season 10/Testing Hangovers
Jaguar TCS Racing’s Mitch Evans has described to FEN the immediate aftermath of the complex final race for the Big Cat in London last July. The Kiwi said that “it was pretty tense,” and a “really tricky moment for Nick and me, in terms of dealing with the emotions of missing out on the (drivers) championship.
“You got these kind of conflicting emotions inside you and obviously the way that it finished in London was really tough. I think things have changed a bit since then. Obviously, there’s been a lot of discussion about how things were, were dealt with. And you know, we will see some, some changes, and hopefully we’ll learn from those moments.
“It’s one of those of those moments you just want to kind move on from, make sure it doesn’t happen again. It took me a while to get over that one,” concluded Evans.
Envision managing director Sylvain Filippi reckons that customer teams were catching up to their manufacturer rivals up to the Jarama test and perhaps even in the early stages of the season. Envision also got test time at Circuit Mallorca just before flying out to São Paulo with both Robin Frijns and Sebastien Buemi getting seat time.
“The back foot isn’t the right term, but we are really starting a bit from behind compared to the manufacturer teams because we just fitted our steering damper (at Jarama) for the first time on our cars,” Filippi told FEN ahead of São Paulo
“It was way too stiff, and we couldn’t make it work properly. Manufacturers have sorted that six months ago. We are just behind the curve.”
The Kiro team was forced to send the survival cell that Simona de Silvestro hit a kerb with in Jarama back to Dallara last month. The team freighted the spare to São Paulo, while the damaged tub got remedial repairs and torsional test sign off before flying to Brazil where it will be used as the race car for David Beckmann’s debut with the team.
2 x U.S Races Pressure Resurfaces
Andretti team principal Roger Griffiths has re-iterated the desire for Andretti to see two U.S races in the future. The team is known to have been disappointed that Portland was not kept on the calendar in conjunction with the Homestead event next April.
“I think all of us are desperate for a second US race,” Griffiths told FEN. “Ideally, if we can have one on the west coast and one on the east coast somewhere, that would be what we’re all hoping for. I think that’s something we’ve absolutely got to work towards, whether that comes at the expense of dropping one of the current rounds or it’s an additional round with an expansion in the calendar. The calendar has some room to add one or two other events, and that would be great.”
New Reserves
Recently announced Andretti reserve driver Jak Crawford told FEN it was “an honour” to be part of the Andretti team and that “ever since I was young, growing up watching Indy car I’ve known about the Andretti name and what it means.
Crawford, who will race in F2 for a second campaign in 2025, is highly likely to be part of Andretti’s Berlin rookie test squad in July and is expected to also act as a pool reserve for the Porsche and Kiro teams at some races this season.
Nissan and McLaren will share newly signed Nissan reserve and sim driver Sergio Sette Camara this season. The Brazilian, who is on site at São Paulo, is likely to replace Norman Nato at the team for the Berlin EPrix in July as the Nissan driver has to prioritise the FIA WEC race for Cadillac Jota at Interlagos on the same weekend as the Tempelhof race.
Zak Crawford, who is competing in the final F2 races of the season in Abu Dhabi this weekend, told FEN recently that his signing to Andretti as reserve and development driver was “super cool to be with Andretti, and it’s something that I wouldn’t have thought I would have the opportunity to have until later in my career, so it’s great already to be a part of the team.”
Porsche will unveil a new reserve driver to be shared between itself and Andretti from Jeddah onwards in February. Formula E director Florian Modlinger told FEN at Sao Paulo today that “we are still evaluating, we take our time as we have two single-header races. In Jeddah you will hopefully see a new face.”
Joel Eriksson will continue as Jaguar reserve and act as a pool driver for Envision also, while Oliver Turvey is the nominated DS and Maserati MSG sub. Jordan King maintains a similar position at Mahindra. All three drivers are at São Paulo this week.
Staff and Freight Movements
McLaren Automotive confirmed recently that Ian James is its new Director of Motorsport, overseeing all of McLaren Automotive’s GT products and customer racing activities. The role is in addition to his ongoing Managing Director role at NEOM McLaren Electric Racing, and as team principal of the NEOM McLaren Formula E Team.
Zane Maloney will be engineered by Christian Engelhardt at Lola Yamaha Abt. Former performance engineer Engelhardt has previously worked for Schaeffler as a systems engineer before working in DTM primarily with Rene Rast at the ABT Sportsline team.
Nissan has shuffled its engineers around this season as Oliver Rowland’s 2024 engineer Jules Chambon moves across the garage to be reacquainted with the returning Norman Nato, while Johann Aime who was with Sacha Fenestraz last season will work with Rowland.
Formula E has stated that it will cut its freight emissions by 25%, saving 5,500 tons of CO2, by optimizing air freight and shifting more transport to more sea and road freight in partnership with DHL. Additionally, through optimising sea and road freight routes in addition to reducing the volume of freight needed to be transported, Formula E now only uses 2 DHL freight planes rather than three.
Former General Motors and NASCAR entity Spire Motorsports Doug Duchardt was in the Formula E paddock at the Andretti team after recently making a move to the TWG Group. TWG will oversee Anfretti’s multiple interests in global motorsport. São Paulo will be Duchardt’s first EPrix.
New Partners
Nissan Formula E Team has announced a technical partnership with Dynisma Ltd., in an agreement which will see the supply of a brand-new bespoke racing simulator prior to Season 12 (2025/26).
Formula E has today announced a live broadcast deal with Chinese digital multimedia company Tencent covering all 16 E-Prix of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship’s Season 11, starting this Saturday, 7th December in São Paulo.
Broadcast across China where Formula E has more than 100 million fans, Free Practice, Qualifying and all 16 races will be available from Tencent Sports, Tencent Video, Tencent News, WeChat Channels and QQ, including the Shanghai races on race 31st May and 1st June 2025.
Season 11 Coverage
A full Pre-Season Podcast from The Race with input from Andretti’s Jim Wright and Nissan’s Oliver Rowland is available to listen to HERE
The full timetable and broadcasting coverage of the Sao Paulo EPrix can be found HERE
