The new Fortescue Zero Formula E squad has chosen Jim Wright to be its Team Principal, as the Australian entrant gets set to make its debut in the 2026/27 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship this December.
Motorsport veteran Wright brings decades of experience across Formula 1, Formula E and several other international racing series. He has previously held key roles with Williams F1, Scuderia Toro Rosso, Virgin Racing, Mahindra Racing, Venturi Formula E and Andretti Global.
Wright was a founder and driving force of the Formula E Teams & Manufacturers Association (FETAMA) for the first decade of Formula E and acted as the secretariat for the that organisation, although his influence was in fact much deeper.
Speaking upon his appointment, Wright said that he was “excited to join Fortescue Zero at a significant moment in the company’s motorsport and technology journey. Fortescue Zero has a clear ambition to compete at the highest level, while also using motorsport to accelerate real-world technology,”
“Formula E is one of the most competitive and technically demanding championships in the world. Building a new team for the next generation of Formula E is a major challenge and exactly the kind of opportunity that motivates me,” added Wright.
Fortescue Zero Electromobility Chief Technology Officer Travis Hester added that Wright brought “an extraordinary depth of experience across the commercial, sporting and operational sides of motorsport.”
“He understands Formula E from every angle and knows what it takes to build a competitive team in one of the world’s most demanding racing series.”
Is Wright right for FZ?
Jim Wright was brought in to essentially set up and make operational the Fortescue Zero’s Formula E team, and his role came via his friendship with Jaguar race director and Fortescue Zero manager, Gary Ekerold.
The two have forged a mutual appreciation for each other over the years in Formula E where each has been a no-nonsense, acutely observatory manager with their respective employers within the paddock. FEN has learned that Wright was not offered the job until late August when the deal with Penske was still going through. He began the role on September 7.
Wright, a trusted lieutenant in the marketing of Williams F1 in the 1990s and early 2000s, then went on to spend time working with Venturi, Mahindra and Andretti in Formula E, a concept of racing he believed in from an early stage. He counts one of F1’s out-and-out legends, Sir Frank Wiliams, as one of his defining mentors over the course of his career.
Wright really does know Formula E inside-out, and crucially from Fortescue Zero’s standpoint, it is an all-encompassing understanding from a sporting, marketing, political and commercial viewpoint.
One could make the case that Wright is not that technically adept. But that is really not so crucial in a team that will work to a customer model. It will also have the express backing of Jaguar via the manufacturer arrangement it has with the ‘Big Cat’, which to its competitors will no doubt cause, at the very least, a raised eyebrow or two due to Fortescue Zero’s intrinsic relationship as the key service provider for Jaguar.
Wright will already have a screed of pre-prepared questions and answers around that particular topic, and will no doubt be forced in to conferring with it from the Jarama pre-season test onwards.
His current in-box will be rammed to capacity right now with recruitment – including sorting the talent out in engineering – but most newsworthy of all also the two drivers that Fortescue Zero will employ.
As revealed by FEN, Taylor Barnard is all but done, so it is the second berth that is of keen interest right now. Wright has been direct, as he usually always is, when it comes to his opinions on rivers before – See here But Wright will be far from the sole decision maker on these matters.
Will Wright’s lack of experience as a Team Principal in motorsport be a concern? Not specifically, because his range of prior roles have given him as good an armoury as anyone who has gone before him in Formula E.
Wright has a wide and balanced knowledge of racing but moreover, and more pertinently, he is himself a real racer who has lived and breathed the sport for almost half a century as first a fan, then a marketing and commercial manager, and now a fully fledged Team Principal.
With that in mind it’s hard to see a better candidate that Fortescue Zero could have gone for right now.
