New MSG Owners Latest
Formal offers for an acquisition for the beleaguered MSG team, which will race under Citroën branding next season have been recently made according to Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds.
“We have had formal offers to acquire that team,” confirmed Dodds to FEN in London last Friday.
“Good offers from really good parties to acquire that team, and we have a number of other live conversations that are not at offer stage, but they’re ongoing and they’re live. We’re not so involved in it but Liberty Global handled those conversations because we want to be nowhere near it. They’re very optimistic they will find the right owner.
“We hope that’s in time for the start of next season. And that will be my expectation. My best guess would be they will be under new ownership by the start of next season,” concluded Dodds.
McLaren’s Complex Farewell Explained
The NEOM McLaren team failed to score points in its final races at London after incidents scuppered ambitions to go out on a high. The licence, which was previously HWA Racelab and then Mercedes EQ completed its seventh season in Formula E, has now returned in to the custodianship of Formula E Operations. NMFE’s outgoing team principal Ian James, who is widely tipped to join Jaguar in a similar role this autumn, told FEN that political aspects to the scenario in which the team left the grid and also ran out of time to be saved were significant.
“Let’s be frank about it, we work in motorsport. It’s an environment where politics and the financials play a significant role,” said James. “I think that’s very much been a factor within this particular situation. In terms of regrets, when you ask about that, the only regret I have genuinely is that we didn’t have more time. Because I think we threw everything at it to make sure that we could find a solution that hasn’t come to fruition. I genuinely believe that if we had more time, we would have found that solution. The interest was there.
When pushed by FEN on whether the ongoing situation at MSG had a detrimental effect on plans to save the team, James said: “Yes, but I can’t go into the contractual details for obvious reasons, but certainly there was a complexity throughout because of various different agreements and situations which certainly hindered the opportunities for us.”
25/26 Calendar Update
Sanya is close to completing its return to the Formula E schedule after recent progress on a deal to host a second Chinese Formula E race next June. FEN understands that a possible new deal with Jakarta for the vacant May 30 slot, with a key figure at Formula E stating that the likelihood of a race continuing in the Indonesian capital has risen from 50 to 75% recently.
Bucharest/Norisring?
Representatives from the city of Bucharest, the capital of Romania, visited the London E-Prix for the first time. Bucharest has some experience of hosting races having had rounds of the British F3 Championship and GT races in 2007 and 2008 at the Hermann Tilke designed Bucharest Ring which raced around the capital parliament buildings.
Formula E has also recently looked at and talked to several other well-known circuits in Europe, including Imola, Zandvoort and Norisring. The latter of those was in discussions to possibly host a race in 2018 but talks for a facility share with DTM at the time dissipated.
Lola Yamaha ABT’s Thomas Biermeier told FEN that he thought an event at the Norisring in Nuremberg would fit the Gen4 era of Formula E perfectly.
“Four weeks ago, we had DTM at Norisring and the whole weekend we had around 100,000 spectators and everything is built,” said Biermeier.
“If you did it (Formula E) and week later or a week earlier it would be a nice synergy together with DTM and together with the ADAC and it would fit the Gen4 cars perfectly.”
Tim Mayer’s Thoughts on Formula E Future
FIA Presidential candidate, Tim Mayer, visited the London E-Prix last week and sat down with FEN as he continues to visit championships and FIA sporting clubs across the world. Mayer, who announced his challenge to present incumbent president Mohammed Ben Sulayem, said that he had spoken to CEO Jeff Dodds and Chairman, Alejandro Agag, describing them as “a really strong management team with a very, very clear vision of what they want to do.”
On the announcement that the exclusivity of Formula E as a world championship single seater entity will be extended until , Mayer added “hats off to them for securing that and looking out in to the 2050s because that is quite a long contract for the FIA. But again, not being privy to what’s in all that, it’s hard for me to comment on it. However, I think that Formula E has a really strong story to tell and it needs to. I think they probably needed that long-term stability in order to really invest in what it is going to be in the future.
Fries Speaks!
A previously slightly reclusive presence in Formula E media paddock circles, Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries joined Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds in London to explain and celebrate the recent extension to the electric single-seater exclusivity edict. Watch the presentation HERE.
Evans Frustration
Mitch Evans rued a scrappy Sunday race after a chaotic Saturday encounter that saw a volatile rant on his team radio. Evans assisted teammate Nick Cassidy in getting pole on Sunday by backing off on his qualifying lap against his fellow Kiwi to gain the three points. He then ran to an initial strategy in the race to similarly assist Cassidy’s quest to take the runners-up place, something that was achieved, albeit involving a difficult race for Evans in which he clearly felt more could have been done for him to ensure a likely first 1-2 for Jaguar since Monaco 2024.
“I was fine at energy at the start, but then once all the attacks started happening, it started to become a bit of a mess,” Evans told FEN. “It was carnage. I couldn’t under-consume the way I could at the start of the race, and then the energy deficit to Nick got quite high. Compared to everyone else, I was fine, but a lot was happening behind Nick, and it gave him a clean run to get his attacks under-consume.
“It was a big fight behind, but for some reason today, on my own, I couldn’t hit targets to save myself. Yesterday, I was totally fine but today, I don’t know if it was a change in the profile or what was going on, but that’s why I was asking for a tow because Nick was good on energy, and there’s no threat for him.”
Porsche Lands Double Title Achievement
TAG Heuer formula E Team and Porsche AG took the teams and manufacturers title respectively in London, with the latter crown being the first officially recognised FIA world championship for manufacturers since it was mandated last year, although Jaguar was awarded with a trophy last season despite it not being an official world title.
“It took quite some time until we got there and we had to learn a lot,” Porsche’s head of motorsport Thomas Laudenbach told FEN in London. “But I think on the other hand, we tried to improve all the time and we changed things, we worked on processes, we worked on everything. I think now we understand how Formula E works. What are the important things you have to do right.
“I’m not saying it’s easy to do it right as it’s still a big challenge. I’m not trying to be arrogant, but I think we’ve been shown where we are for quite a while and I think it’s fair to say we’re at least one of the teams to beat,” added Laudenbach.
Nissan: Work to Do
Despite achieving the drivers title with Oliver Rowland and scoring its biggest points haul ever in Formula E, Nissan had a poor second half of the season. Rowland’s excellent Tokyo E-Prix victory aside, Nissan took just 35 points from the final seven races. That is 14 less than eighth-placed Envision Racing, and a gargantuan 140 adrift of the freakishly prolific Jaguar in the same timeframe.
Team leader Tommaso Volpe told FEN just after the season ended with a non-score in the last race that “we can still improve our control system” and that “we need to improve also on the team side and we need to make sure that we have more even results between the two sides of the garage. We definitely need to focus on this and make sure that the way we work will equal a little bit more the chances to score points with two drivers.”
Nissan’s technical leader Theophile Gouzin, who was put on ‘gardening leave’ just before the Berlin E-Prix earlier this month as he will join Jaguar in December, is set to be replaced, with Volpe saying that “yes, we are now looking for a direct replacement.”
Has this Bird Flown?
Sam Bird may have taken part in his final Formula E race after a difficult second campaign with the outgoing NEOM McLaren squad. Bird ended the season on 31pts and in 18th position, while new teammate Taylor Barnard finished fourth on 112. Bird has been an ever-present in Formula E since its inception in 2014, only missing five races because of injuries to his hand that were sustained at London in 2022 and at Monaco two years later.
The 21 other drivers at London hosted an impromptu get together for a photo with Bird just before the Sunday race, although FEN understands that Bird and his management team from GP Sports Management are talking to teams about future roles. The 38 year-old is also looking at a return to endurance sportscar racing after a successful period between 2014 and 2019 in which he won the LMP2 WEC title in ’15 alongside Roman Rusinov and Julien Canal at G-Drive Racing.
Mahindra Manufacturer Deal Incoming?
Mahindra will decide upon its precise Gen4 entry model status next month. Mahindra, which has been a registered manufacturer in the championship since 2015 is among two entities that have yet to completely confirm if they will be a fully-fledged manufacturer or a customer team with another manufacturer partner.
“We will know soon and we are ready for any (model of entry),” Bertrand told FEN on Sunday. “We are still ready to be a manufacturer but we are also ready to be a customer team. We still don’t know. It’s a decision that Mahindra will have to make. We wanted to wait until the end of the championship and now the championship is over we should have an answer soon., hopefully in the next 2-3 weeks.”
Buemi and Summerville Scoop ABB Award
Sebastien Buemi and his Envision Racing engineer Connor Summerville were the winners of the ABB Engineered to Outrun award this season with the most positions gained (87) across the 2024-25 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship season. Buemi and Summerville picked up their award at the end of season gala presentation held at ExCeL on Sunday evening.
Guardian Parents Formula E
A special insight in to Formula E and its status within the motorsport industry was dug in to by friend of FEN’s Giles Richards in UK daily newspaper The Guardian last Friday. The feature, which FEN founder Sam Smith contributed to can be accessed HERE.
FE Notebook Specials Coming Up!
Formula E Notebook is pleased to announce that a series of special post/close/and pre-season Notebook specials will appear between now and for the start of the 2025-26 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship season, scheduled to start on December 6.
A season review (September), pre-season testing (October) editions are all confirmed in association with founding partners RaceOn GmbH and AVL Racetech. To find out more on both AVL Racetech and RaceOn, click on the logos at the top of the page.
FEN would like to thank, first and foremost all both its readers, founding partner Alice Holloway, AVL Racetech and RaceOn GmbH for their continued support, the entire Formula E paddock, FEN staffers – Georgia Williams, Andy Stobart and Andy Page, as well as the Spacesuit Media team for their commitment to FEN for its second Formula E season.
FEN would also like to thank CUPRA, Russell Horton at SuperHuman Performance, Stewart Bell, Hugo Morales, Sophie Sun, Matthew Marsh, Evie James, Brigita Irvine Wybrott at BW Sports Marketing for continued support over the 2024-25 season.
