Peeping behind the curtain of Evo Sessions 2

“This will probably be the last time we do an Evo Sessions style in this format.”

That was Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds talking a few days before 10 content creators and other assorted social media influencers were let loose in the actual race cars that were competing in the Jeddah EPrix less than 24 hours earlier.

Behind the paddock an hour or so after Evo Sessions2, Lola and CUPRA Kiro mechanics were sifting through wreckage. The combined invoice for that lot will likely be in excess of €1m, for which Formula E will pay.

Accidents felt inevitable once it was known that there would be an element of competition in the second episode of what Formula E still hopes will become a permanent feature of its season. However, it won’t include Gen4 cars and it’s unlikely to take place at a street circuit.

“The Gen4 car won’t allow for non-elite racing drivers,” added Dodds.

“This car’s (Gen3Evo) is impressive, but you put them into that car (Gen4) and it’s just going to be too big and too powerful for them.

“So, I think we’ll have to look at what we do next to continue to engage that audience, but it won’t be in the same format. The learnings we get from this one will carry forward, but it won’t be for something similar.”

Formula E worked with the specialist entertainment promoter and provider, Arcade. They essentially ran the show on the day. It was all far from easy.

The FIA were not involved in any operational aspect and race director Marek Hanaczewski. was operating on a freelance basis. Nervousness was said to permeate the pit lane at times, which was amusingly displayed by Joel Eriksson’s comical pleading.

At least the TV presentation, live streamed, and viewed by over five million eyes apparently, was strong with David Coulthard, Karun Chandhok, Alexa Rendell and Nikki Shields holding things together. But bizarrely, an additional face called Bella James was introduced.

Her sardonic schtick, popular in F1, simply didn’t work at this event and she just looked hapless and amateur. An expensive mistake by Formula E/Arcade.

While Izzy Hammond’s shunt was unfortunate and might have happened to four or five of the other entrants, there was a much more troubling story a little further on down the pitlane.

At Mahindra ‘Wiine’ (Mahindra) elected to throw his lap to aid the ‘Senor Frog’ team. What did that all mean? No one really knew, nor cared.

What did matter was that ‘Wiiine’ (William from Whitley Bay) lost any modicum of respect he may have had, but probably didn’t. Treating the event and team in this way, after Mahindra had spent time, effort and money on him (including patching up the car after he damaged it slightly in qualifying) was difficult to digest and brought the whole ethos of the event in to disrepute.

Rumour had it that team principal Frederic Bertrand kicked him out of the Mahindra garage. If he did, he deserved it.

The glacial pace of the ‘Wooden Spoon’ winning Citroen Racing driver, Max Klymenco (stands on a ladder, etc) was so slow it was initially presumed he was stuck on his pit limiter. Clearly he should have been nowhere near a cockpit of any race car let alone a Gen3 Evo Formula E.

There were other stories of concern, including almost hourly displeasure on the organisation of the event. In reality this had been audible since the Mexico City EPrix a month before, including at least one team initially threatening to not take part at all, such was the lateness of details around the event.

The Evo Sessions2 Idea

How did Formula E come to make the decision that a second iteration of the Evo Sessions was a good idea?

We asked Chief Marketing Officer, Ellie Norman, who has been a driving force of the initiative

“When we look at data we take that from across many sources, number one there’s the qualitative feedback and that’s the verbatim comments from creators as to how they found the experience, what would they look to have or wish to have next time round,” Norman told FEN.

“I think the brilliant thing with social media is you’ve just got that live real-time data and that gives you typically a brilliant quantitative basis. So really understanding social commentary and input from teams and input from the creators allows us to then look at that in the whole from a quantitative and a qualitative perspective to say how do we move this forward.

“Those key outtakes in terms of now what we’re doing this time is a tighter narrative, a competitive element so very much putting that around the duels format which is again the safest most controlled way to introduce a competitive element for non-professional race drivers in terms of one car on track at a time and having a live stream.

“So that’s really what we’ve implemented for time and alongside that a live stream and the narrative that we chose to work with Arcade, who obviously are the management company of ‘The Sidemen’ (football competition), so the UK’s largest creator group and they’ve brought that narrative angle and ensured that it is entirely creator based in terms of how the teams are put together.”

FEN understands that discussions between Formula E and Arcade have already taken place about the possibility of a third iteration happening in 2027, although as detailed above not with the new Gen4 cars.