Gen4 Testing Continues
Further independent testing of the Gen4 will take place this month with several days of running at the Alès Cévennes track in France. Further manufacturer running is also schedule to continue with a probable further group manufacturer test ahead of an official media launch of the Gen4 project in the Spring.
Reigning champion Oliver Rowland is not schedule to drive the Gen4 car until the summer with testing set to be mostly conducted by Sam Bird and potentially also Benoit Treluyer, who has participated in the first two group tests.
Mitch Evans told Formula E Notebook that he felt he was “missing out a little bit” on not sampling the Gen4 car as he is out of contract with the Jaguar TCS Racing team this summer.
“I just want to have a taste of it, but it’s just the circumstances that I’m in at the moment,” said Evans. “I’m not too worried about it. There’s so much Gen4 testing that’s going to be happening in-season but also post-season, so wherever I am that won’t be a huge issue. When everyone’s going to drive the new toy up and down the paddock, you feel like you’re missing out a little bit, just purely from that side. But my time will come to drive the car.”
Miami Nice?
The first ever EPrix at the Hard Rock Stadium took place in atypically cold conditions as the Miami area suffered a rare cold snap with temperatures never getting above 16 degrees in the race, with the track temperature plunging to 20.1 at the coldest point of the race. Saturday night in Miami saw the coldest temperature – 2.2∘C recorded in the city since 1909.
The race was the sixth venue in the U.S to host a Formula E race after the original Miami street race at Biscayne Bay in 2015, Long Beach (2015 and 16), Red Hook in New York (2017-22), Portland (2023-24) and Homestead (2025).
Sam Bird, who was commentating for the host broadcast feed in Miami, is the most successful driver with three victories all at Red Hook with his famous double in 2017 and then a third win for Jaguar in 2021.
The Miami EPrix event was attended by a large amount of celebrities and social media influencers but actual ticket sales for the event were believed to be modest. Formula E quoted just over 10,000 attendees but this included a large amount of invited VIP guests.
Formula E CEO, Jeff Dodds told FEN last Friday he thought “we’ll get a good crowd, but I think it’ll still be a grower” and that the cold snap was “not ideal. We wouldn’t choose that; we’d be choosing for Hawaiian shirts and shorts.
Dodds added that the believed the culture of some events in the U.S sees consumers deciding on the day if they will attend, which is in contrast to guaranteed crowds at other events.
“Mexico, you kind of know what’s happening, because every year it’s consistently the same. The U.S market tends to be what they call a ‘late market’ which is having the ticket doesn’t always guarantee people turn up, because there’s lots going on and they make a Miami Grand Prix choice late in the day.”
The President of the F1 Miami Grand Prix facility, Katharina Nowak told FEN that a longer version of the Miami EPrix circuit would be relatively straightforward to complete for the Gen4 era next year.
“The inner loop, that gave us an opportunity to create four new configurations,” she said “The fifth one is then the one we use for Grand Prix weekend. So right now, we’re running on the shortest configuration that we have. If and when we get the confirmation from Formula E that the Gen4 car can run a stronger and longer configuration, we can work with them (FEO) on the other three extensions that we have to figure out which one works best for that Gen4 car.”
Also seen at the race were ex F1 and IndyCar driver Romain Grosjean, IMSA driver and former Jaguar, Andretti and NIO 333 driver Tom Blomqvist and new Andretti IndyCar driver, Will Power.
Power told FEN that he thought Formula E was “very interesting” with “some serious technology in there. “I’m very interested to drive a car. I want to understand techniques because it’s probably different to a normal open wheel car.”
F1 Academy driver Maya Weug and Indy NXT racer Myles Rowe each completed laps in a Gen3Evo on race day. Weug finished second to Doriane Pin in last season’s F1 Academy series, while Rowe will take part in a third Indy NXT campaign with Abel Motorsports.
Miami EPrix Debrief
Race winner Mitch Evans said that his race winning move on Nico Mueller with a well-executed switchback at Turn 13 was defined by what he described as amazing traction of his Jaguar I-Type 7 on the Hard Rock circuit.
“If you go a little bit long, it’s not too penalising,” explained Evans. “Obviously, they have to defend, and then you can get the crossover on traction. My traction was amazing today and I knew I had a good advantage there. Once he (Mueller) defended, I knew I had to cross him over and it worked out. That seemed to be the most obvious place to overtake. Our pace was similar but I was just trying to find the right time.”
In winning his 15th Formula E race, Evans became the driver with the most victories as he had been tied with Sebastien Buemi since the Berlin EPrix last July. Buemi had held the record since taking his second EPrix win at Monaco in May 2015. Evans’ latest win came 2486 days after his first at the second Rome EPrix in April 2019.
There was some confusion as to why the Safety Car started the race and completed three laps before the Race Director Marek Hanaczewski called for a standing start. But regulation 38.17 allows the race to start under Safety Car before at the race director’s discretion a standing start can proceed.
Ever-present Formula E Safety Car driver Bruno Correia tested his reflexes at the start of the Miami EPrix according to runner-up Nico Mueller. “Bruno had fun and he nearly lost it once,” said the Porsche driver. “I don’t know if anyone saw it at Turn 2, he nearly lost it on the kerb!”
Mahindra’s Edoardo Mortara finished sixth after coming through from 16th on the grid, largely because of a qualifying incident that saw his car damaged by an errant Sebastien Buemi at the Turn 13 hairpin. Buemi received a five-place grid drop for the incident.
“I got really annoyed with that one,” Mortara told FEN. “I think that lap would have been comfortably through in the duels, which is always the goal in qualifying. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.”
From Buemi’s side the incident was explained as a confusion as to whether the Mahindra’s (as Buemi was also penalised for impeding Nyck de Vries) “were in their push lap, not in a prep lap. I was told we were in a prep lap.
“So, the problem is people do some prep laps very quick as well. I just thought, they just want to jump me before the start of the lap. But in fact, no, they were in a proper lap,” added the Envision driver who finished eighth after coming from the back of the grid.
The rain shower that hit the track an hour before the race saw teams make last minute set-up changes and witnessed some getting the tyre pressure call right and some clearly not. Mahindra’s Nyck de Vries rued a lack of pace that saw him confined to a fifth place finish despite initially looking like he could have challenged for a podium in the early stages of the race. The 2021 champion told FEN that there was some guesswork as to the best set-up for the conditions.
“I mean, it’s really just guessing as it was wet, but there was no standing water, so it was not that wet,” said de Vries. “It was forecasted more rain during the race, but actually it was kind of stopping, so you just have to weigh out the pros and cons of each decision. I think we were a little too far off and this was probably the maximum result for us in today’s conditions.”
Despite being unable to add to his point scored in Sao Paulo, Lola Yamaha ABT driver Zane Maloney said that the Miami EPrix weekend was positive despite the fact the Miami track didn’t dry out as quickly as he and his team expected in the race.
“We had good pace all weekend, missed the duels by less than a tenth in quali,” he told FEN.“Then in the race, it’s so hit and miss, either you take attack mode early in the rain and you go up to the front like Pascal (Wehrlein) did and hope it stays wet for the race, or you save a bit of energy and hope that it dries out.
“I mean, it goes both ways. Today, obviously Pascal went for it and the track didn’t dry out, so he was fine on energy, but if the track dried out then we would have been in a much better place. But this weekend was probably the best weekend we’ve had as Lola Yamaha.”
Exclusive: Iguana Silly Season
FEN is pleased to report that a special ‘Frozen Iguana’ flag was not put in to use at the Hard Rock Stadium last weekend despite warnings from local areas that the reptiles could become a hazard. In Florida, when temperatures drop below 40°F–50°F green iguanas enter a state of torpor, causing them to freeze up and fall from trees. They are not deceased but just stunned, and often only revive when temperatures rise. This phenomenon is believed to be number 487 in the International Racing Driver non-official book of excuses.
