Future of German FE Race
Berlin Tempelhof saw a bumper crowd this year as the race, unlike 2025, was blessed with warm spring sunshine. Formula E Operations reported a sell-out crowd in what was remarkably the 23rd and 24th races at the former airport and scene of the historic Berlin Airlift/Blockade in 1948. Formula E Notebook understands that there was a slightly bigger crowd on Sunday than there was on Saturday.
While the location has been a staple of Formula E, recent discussions have taken place with the Norisring venue in Nuremburg as a possible replacement for Tempelhof in 2027. However, this possibility receded last month due to complications of gaining sufficient permits at the street venue.
Speaking to FEN at Berlin last weekend, Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds said that Formula E had a long-term agreement with Berlin to use Tempelhof and that recent work completed on the main hangar building has “now come to a point where we can start to go back inside the hangar as well, and I think it opens up more exhibition space, and quite an interesting opportunity for us.
“In the end, if we can get big crowds here, and keep growing the crowds, it’s a great setup for music, it’s a great setup for exhibition space, so I look at it on the basis of can it deliver what we want next, not what it’s done before.”
Drivers meet with FIA in Ricard and Tempelhof
FIA Formula E championship manager Pablo Martino told FEN prior to the Berlin EPrix that he had met with drivers at both Paul Ricard last month and at Tempelhof in an on-going dialogue about the concerns that were raised in a letter delivered to the FIA President in March.
“Yesterday (Thursday, April 30) we had a meeting with some of the drivers to talk about some of the incidents from Madrid in order to understand if the approach that we are taking in some of the circumstances is positive or should be taken differently,” said Martino.
“It’s not the FIA asking them ‘how do you want us to regulate?’ It’s us asking them what the best way is to improve this in order for you to feel much more assured that we are applying consistently on decisions. I mean, it’s a working process and it’s not something that is going to require a massive change because we were quite robust in our decision-making process anyway, and we are quite confident that the stewards apply decisions consistently and in a fair manner.”
Stellantis’ Calafat Test
The Stellantis Gen4 development car was out in action yesterday (Tuesday) at the Calafat circuit in Spain. Theo Pourchaire was conducting the driving duties before he headed to Spa for this weekend’s TotalEnergies 6 Hours of Spa. Other drivers heading to the Ardennes and about to do leg two of a triple header across the first three weekends of May, which will culminate in the Monaco EPrix, are Nyck de Vries, Norman Nato, Sebastien Buemi and Antonio Felix da Costa.
Citroen and Opel’s Recruitment Drive
FEN has learned that the new Citroen Formula E team is getting set to make a significant driver announcement later this month regarding a new recruit to its squad in a development capacity. The acquisition is set to attract major publicity for the team as it enters the second half of its maiden Formula E season.
Additionally, the Opel team has also hired a new experienced and well-known motorsport figure in the shape of ex-Porsche Francis Shammo. He joins the team after a long stint at Porsche where he filled mainly team organisation roles including being team manager on several projects including GT3 and LMP2. Prior to his 13 years at Porsche, Shammo worked with BMW, Farnbacher, HEICO and Seikel Motorsports. Shammo, who was on-site in Berlin, will take up the position as team manager at Opel later this month.
Statistik-Wunderland!
Edoardo Mortara took his fourth pole position at Tempelhof on Saturday afternoon, equalling the record of poles at one specific circuit in Formula E. The Mahindra driver previously notched up poles for Venturi with a brace of top spots in 2022 before following up that feat with one last season for Mahindra. Prior to that Jean-Eric Vergne claimed four between 2016 and 2021, with the first one for DS Virgin and the following three for DS Techeetah. Vergne, along with Lucas di Grassi, is the only driver to compete in all 24 Berlin EPrixs. Between them they have won at the venue three times.
Mortara’s pole ensured that he continued to be the best qualifier so far in the 2025-26 ABB FIA Formula E world championship with an average of 5th place on the grid so far this season. Teammate Nyck de Vries lags behind with an 11th average start.
Lola Yamaha ABT lead 8 laps of Saturday’s race with Lucas di Grassi enjoying free air for 6 of those and teammate Zane Maloney, 2. That race featured 8 different leaders over the course of the 37 laps, with 13 lead changes. There were 267 overtakes in the race. That paled in to insignificance compared to Sunday’s race which witnessed 16 lead changes and 11 different leaders. An astounding 651 overtakes were registered.
Oliver Rowland scored his fourth and fifth podiums of the season with third and second place respectively. The reigning champion is coming up to a full 12 months since his last victory in Formula E which was captured in the second Tokyo EPrix last May.
A day on from announcing his retirement from the cockpit at the end of this season, Lucas di Grassi became the third oldest driver to start an EPrix on Saturday. The only drivers more senior than the 2016-17 champion are Jacques Villeneuve, who was 44 at the 2015 Punta del Este EPrix, and Stephane Sarrazin who was 42 when he started for Andretti at the 2018 New York City EPrix.
Berlin on-track round-up
Mitch Evans’ Jaguar spent an inordinate amount of time being checked in the FIA Technical area after Sunday’s race although no details have been made public as to why beyond the regular checks by the FIA technical team.
Evans took a 16th Formula E win of his career that the race after playing a game of patience in which he went from P16 to P1 in 6 laps utilising an aggressive six and two minutes attack mode strategy and fresher tyres than the majority of the field after sacrificing the qualifying period. The Jaguar TCS Racing driver completed seventeen 350kW passes, while Rowland who deployed a similar strategy on tyres, although took a four and four minute attack mode plan, made nine 350kW moves.
Nico Mueller’s weekend of two halves, which saw his breakthrough win earned through an exceptional drive on Saturday, also witnessed featured a messy incident with Antonio Felix da Costa’s Jaguar on Sunday.
The Porsche driver told The Race that the contact between he and da Costa happened when “he kind of closed the door, but not really. The gap was just about there and I went for it, and in that very moment, he turned a little bit to the left, and the gap became that little bit smaller. I’m not saying that he did something completely stupid, but it was just a small move to the left that I don’t expect on a straight that goes to the right. In the end, it destroyed my race, so can’t be happy about it, obviously!”
Da Costa was equally aggrieved and had an alternative view of the shunt that brought out the late race Full Course Yellow, the only one of the entire weekend.
“He (Mueller) had 15 meters on the right side to go and use his attack mode, and he was desperate,” reckoned da Costa. “He knew he was going to run out (of attack mode) but I just covered it the inside. From his onboard, it’s clear that was a desperate move.
“I’m super disappointed that that was seen as a racing incident, but I could not have made it more clear to him that was not the way he had to go through. You know, I passed six cars on attack mode on that straight, and I always had to go on the right. It’s just really, really stupid for both of us as we would have both scored good points.”
Felipe Drugovich finally got off the points mark with a strong ninth place on Sunday to back up a brace of competitive qualifying laps that saw him start the Berlin races eighth and seventh respectively.
FEN’s favourite driver interaction of the season so far unfolded as follows…..
FEN: “How is today different from yesterday?”
DRU: “Less Shit”
FEN: “And why was it less shit?”
DRU: “I think it (Sunday’s race) was a good race from my side and there was not much more I could have done starting from where I started and we did you know situation that I had going around me which was pretty chaotic,” he told FEN.
“I think mid-race we were looking not so good on energy and so we managed to drop a little bit and come back at the end, which was I think the right choice. Not something very pleasant as a driving perspective, but all in all I think we need to be happy because I think there’s not much more I could have done there.”
Joel Eriksson scored a point with a tenacious drive in his Envision Jaguar on Sunday after excelling in qualifying where he claimed fourth place, his best ever in Formula E. The Swede led for four laps as he towed teammate Sebastien Buemi around, playing a decent role in Buemi’s eventual fourth place finish.
“The strategy was to work together, to be at the front and just trying to keep everyone behind us, just going side by side a few corners,” Eriksson told The Race.
“It doesn’t matter if I’m in the lead or Seb is in the lead. Just basically trying to block the road and just keep everybody behind us, which we did very well. It’s hard because I’ve never experienced a race like this before, like a proper peloton race and going from P7 to P1 and people just shuffling around four cars wide.
“It’s something you can never practice at. I had to kind of just swallow and take it all in in the first few laps and just get a read early on where we are on the energy. It worked out pretty well. We worked very well, me and Seb, together in the race. That was good.”
Max Guenther failed to register a point for the seventh race running after an issue negated some hard work to get in to a points scoring position in his DS Penske.
“I feel we really drove a great race and we drove our heart out today, once again,’ he told FEN. “We put ourselves in the best positive position, with P8 on the table. And then we lost the power and the race, basically and it’s a fall back all the way to last. Painful, when you work so hard for those points.”
CUPRA Kiro’s Pepe Marti waxed lyrical about his team’s role in his seventh placed finish at Berlin on Saturday
“It was definitely a good strategy from the team and I’ve praised them countless times, but they do a fantastic job,” Marti told FEN. “I mean, they take off a massive weight on my shoulders and all I have to do is drive and they do the job on their side. They haven’t failed me once, so they do a fantastic job. It’s been a good day, such as it was. I think we took the right decision given the amount of energy we had, I think we definitely benefited from that late Pit Boost.”
Is Evans closer to a dual programme?
Opel bound Mitch Evans could make a return to sportscar racing in 2027 as FEN understands he may have wider scope to add endurance races to his Formula E programme. Speaking to FEN, his manager Mark Webber said that with Jaguar there was a mutual decision in place for Evans to focus on Formula E.
“We were very clear (to only do one programme) and I was also with Jaguar,” Webber told FEN. “If I was a team boss at Jaguar, I’d have a driver committed to the programme. In Formula E, there’s been a bit more tension between the programmes. So, I think that’s been a big commitment from Mitch to Jaguar as well, but the dilution of actually doing both is means it does have its challenges, but also you’ve got to look at it.”
The Race Formula E podcast will be issued later this week featuring a deep dive in to some of the statistical threads presented by Infosys via The Stat Pack powered by Infosys. The Race will have a special Youtube film discussing aspects of the Tempelhof weekend including a look at the current driver market for 2027. You can listen to the podcast on your preferred route by clicking HERE.
