Nissan and Andretti have both backed the FIA’s Gen4 overall crackdown on overt orchestrations between manufacturer and customer teams.
The measures to try and stop any sporting collusion between teams has been written in to regulations for the new era of Formula E, beginning at the end of the present year. It was triggered by concerns that some manufacturers may use their customer teams for such practices in Gen4 racing as swapping positions or using cars as blockers in events.
Porsche currently plans to have a numerical advantage in Formula E for Season 13 with a. second factory team planned to run alongside the existing works team and official customers CUPRA Kiro, who were formally declared as continuing with Porsche last month.
Speaking to Formula E Notebook in Tokyo at the official announcement of Nissan and Andretti’s deal, Nissan Formula E team principal and managing director, Tommaso Volpe, said expressed his opinion on the matter, saying that “it’s something that we are really waiting to see how they police it, because it’s not always easy to prevent certain behaviours, which are not technically compliant, especially in pack racing.
“You could have behaviours of cars that are dictated not necessarily by their own advantage, but to create an advantage for another team, for sure. So ,we raised this point with the FIA and they said they will keep an eye on it, and we are just waiting to see what happens.
“As far as we are concerned, what is a very constructive and positive conversation between us and the project and the company is that we are really open to collaborate, because as Nissan, of course as Tommaso Volpe, as principle of Nissan Formula E team, I want to win the team championship and the drivers’ championship.”
Volpe added that the manufacturers championship, of which Nissan finished third last season when it ran with the NEOM McLaren team as a customer, is of high importance too.
“As Nissan, it’s important for us to win the manufacturer championship too,” said Volpe. “Because we are really putting our R&D in the car, and this will show how advanced our knowledge is on performance electrification.
“So, the combination of these two interests, my personal interest and Nissan Corporation’s interest, in a way we will make the partnership very constructive, and also the fight on track I think will be very fair.
“It will be a fair race on track. We do not expect any advantage which goes beyond the fairness of the sport. We expect challenge and constructive input on the car development.”
For Andretti, a similar outlook to how it races was confirmed by team principal, Roger Griffiths. He is known to have batted back hard against some of Porsche’s strategic viewpoints during their relationship which spanned the entire Gen3 era of 2023 to the present day.
Griffiths has not been shy in calling out some of those differences. At the Tokyo EPrix in the first Free Practice session, he unleashed a not so subtle barb at Porsche on FE TV, saying that “perhaps in the past we haven’t quite had as much access as we’d have hoped.”
At the announcement of the new Nissan collaboration for Gen4 Griffiths added that from a sporting standpoint “we just live by the golden rule of teammates don’t crash into each other.”
“In this partnership we extend that relationship of teammates to include the two Nissan drivers as well. It will be a fair fight out there, but it will be a fight,” added Griffiths.
“We are not in a situation, unless a car has a specific problem of moving over for another team, Nissan or anybody else. But we have our own responsibilities to our partners, our sponsors, our ownership group to try and win races. That will be our aim.
“We have certainly experienced a little bit of the orchestration, if you want to call it that, in the past. I personally do not believe it is healthy for the sport, and I fought back very strongly against any sort of thing that went in that direction.
“We are very much in favour of what the FIA is trying to do, trying to ensure that may the best man win or may the best woman win, and we go from there.”
