October 2015 NELSON PIQUET WHAT NEXT?

Transcription

1 October 2015 NELSON PIQUET WHAT NEXT? The future for Formula E s first champ

2 Plug into a new audience The future of racing has arrived and, with it, so has the Current E magazine. This publication reaches electric vehicle enthusiasts, motor racing fans and race track staff, local authorities and transport departments in major cities, and key decision makers throughout the automotive and electric vehicle industries. Book for 2016 editions now.

3 START October 2015 Champ. Nelson, we need to take a couple of portrait shots of you, I said. It was the afternoon before the first Formula E race in Monaco. Current E photographer Dan Bathie and I were stood in the bustling pit lane under hazy grey skies. A crowd had gathered, drawn by the close proximity of well-known racing drivers. Gaggles of green- and blue-vested media people cluttered the garages. A month earlier, Nelson Piquet had won in Long Beach. It had been a very special weekend his first Formula E victory came 35 years to the weekend after his father had claimed his first F1 win. Piquet, an unobtrusive figure who had simply gone about his work without fuss and who had dipped under the glare of the media spotlight for the first half of the season, suddenly found himself centre stage. Having spent time with Piquet at every race, I knew he wasn t overly fond of having his picture taken. Given his hectic schedule and queue of clamouring interviewers, I expected him to ask us to come back later. Instead, he turned to his manager: What s next on my schedule? A lot, came the response, although there was a 20 minute window. We ve got time, he said to me. Where do you want to do the shots? There s only one answer to that when in Monaco: the harbour. That involved quite a hike from where we were, however. Handily, Piquet had a scooter parked up at the entrance of the garage. I ll meet you down there, said Bathie, picking up his cameras for the march to the waterfront. Piquet s response was instant. Just jump on, he said. He pushed the scooter through the crowds and, with Bathie on the back, disappeared down to the glittering blue waters and soaring white hulls to have his photo taken. That was the Nelson we came to know over the course of the first season. He was often withdrawn, introverted almost, but overjoyed to be racing single seaters again after exile from F1. For him, Formula E was a road to redemption, a chance to show the racing world (and himself ) that he had an awful lot more to give. He always had time for fans, he always had time for media. (He called me once when he was in the middle of moving house because I had some questions about the previous race. When the signal dropped out twice he called me back to make sure I had everything I needed.) He drove carefully when he had to, aggressively when the situation called for it. He developed a silky-smooth style that gave him incredible speed on top of incredible energy efficiency. He built a signature strategy and then tore it up to keep his competitors guessing. Piquet won the first Formula E drivers title by a single point, in a thrilling three-way battle that intensified, round by round and city by city, until the last lap of the last race. After some wilderness years, he proved he s back where he belongs. More than the driver, through Formula E Piquet emerged as a person. His passion for racing was evident in his steely standoffs with rival Lucas di Grassi, his determination to pay tribute to his father in Long Beach and his tears in London upon being told he d triumphed. Fittingly for a sport critics derided as silent, it was the quiet man who became a deserving champion. 4 / October 15 current-e.com / 5

4 CONTENTS October 2015 Editor Ross Ringham Techincal editor Craig Scarborough Contributors Luke Smith, Tom Spencer Graphic design Dan Bathie Current E 5 Marlborough Court Westerham Kent TN16 1EU This publication is produced independently of FEH and official Formula E media. Printed on 100% recycled and recyclable paper, using fully sustainable vegetable-based inks, power from renewable sources and waterless printing technology Features 32 Opinion Cover CHAMP Nicki Shields Figuring it out As much as a driver, through Formula E Nelson Piquet has emerged as a person. A grid full of new manufacturers will make for one hell of a show. Simona de Silvestro is looking forward to getting stuck into Formula E. THE COUP It s very simple, says Alain Prost as Renault s F1 division moves in. 22 Banishing the blues Will a new powertrain, technical partner and driver pairing restore Mahindra s title hopes? 28 Penske s boys How season one turned into a fire-breathing performance from Dragon Racing. 31 FIRST SEASON MASTERS What makes a winner? Nelson Piquet, Lucas di Grassi, Sebastien Buemi, Sam Bird, Jerome d Ambrosio, Antonio Felix da Costa and Nico Prost talk highs, lows and season two plans. Technical 65 TRANSFORMERS What s driving the next generation of electric racing cars? 6 / October 15 current-e.com / 7

5 PRESENTER OPINION NICKI Shields New season. New powertrains. Same old racing. In its first season, Formula E provided some incredibly competitive wheel to wheel racing. As a show, as a spectacle, it was thoroughly entertaining. From the first time the lights went out, in Beijing, to the final lap of the final race, in London, the script was torn up and rewritten, again and again. Not one of us teams, drivers, broadcasters, audience knew quite what would happen each time we went racing. It was almost overwhelming how much information there was to interpret every time we made a show. Rules, regulations, how the cars worked, the differences between energy and power, penalties, new drivers the list goes on. We also had to work out how to repeat fundamental information so that new viewers could keep up without switching off existing audiences. Really, though, it didn t matter if a viewer didn t quite grasp all the details because the racing was awesome. It spoke for itself. Of course, it was a huge learning curve for those of us involved too. There was no library to turn to for quick answers, no reference material. You just had to go out there and dig for information when you needed it. In that way, we often ended up educating ourselves just as much as our audiences! Season two will be bigger and better. There s a new edge with the unique powertrains and, with more power available in race mode and strengthened suspension, the racing should be even better. Over preseason testing at Donington Park, several of the drivers told me that the new technology will make for an even more competitive environment. Some are worried that a few teams could run away with the prize but, to us as broadcasters, it s just another story to explore. It was pretty clear at testing that the atmosphere is suddenly more serious. Most of the teams were very protective of their garages this summer, which With new tech and new secrets, how long can Formula E s family feel last? wasn t the case last year when everyone had the same equipment. They don t want people getting glimpses of their new powertrains. In the first season, several teams sacrificed any chance of a title through inconsistencies in drivers and personnel. This time round, it s every team s objective to finish the season with the people it starts with. That s going to be crucial in developing the new powertrains because there is no time to waste. You simply can t spend the first three races warming up or getting new people up to speed. That s a quarter of the season gone. This year, if you don t score points early, you ll say goodbye to your chances of a title. That s why I think Andretti s decision was sensible tough, but sensible. They tried everything they could to get their new technology working before reverting to the original powertrain on the last day of preseason testing. Six days is not a lot of time to run out the gremlins in brand new systems and the team recognises that consistency, not outright pace, is key. Two interesting observations from collective preseason testing. First: despite the fact that some of the new powertrains appear to be significantly faster or more efficient, for the most part it was the drivers who finished at the top of the first season drivers championship who also finished at the top of the Donington Park timesheets. As far as the drivers title goes, could it be that all the differences will make no difference at all? Second: the family feel of Formula E where everyone supported each other to get the championship off the ground in the first season was still just about in evidence over the summer. Now that the sport is up and running and there s a bunch of new tech, new secrets and new competitive differences, I wonder just how long that family feel can last. 8 / October 15 current-e.com / 9

6 I've earned my stripes Simona de Silvestro enjoyed her first taste of Formula E so much that she s back for season two. WORDS : Ross Ringham, Luke Smith PHOTOGRAPHY : Shivraj Gohil, Dan Bathie 10 / October 15 current-e.com / 11

7 FEATURES / Simona de Silvestro American team Andretti pulled off two major coups over the summer break. The first was to snare headline sponsor Amlin, the insurance giant which brings the bright blue livery familiar from its season one partnership with Aguri and an even brighter marketing operation. Perhaps more significantly for the emergent sport is Andretti s decision to recruit Simona de Silvestro to drive for the team full-time in season two. The decision is remarkable for two reasons: de Silvestro had only had one weekend in the car and, yes, she s the sport s only female driver. With long dark hair tumbling across her face and a mischievous smile that flashes across her features frequently, the Swiss driver is relaxed and good natured when we catch up with her just before the summer s preseason testing programme. She s clearly at ease with life. London came about a bit last minute but I had a lot of fun, says de Silvestro of her Battersea Park debut with Andretti in June. She speaks fast and fluently, without the sort of PR-coached careful words and pauses that have become characteristic elsewhere. It s always hard when you come into a series and everybody knows the cars. But it was enjoyable. It s good to be racing in a full championship again. The world of motor racing can be tough and de Silvestro certainly hasn t had the easiest road. Entering the IndyCar series in 2010 after finishing third in the Atlantic Championship feeder series, de Silvestro s first three years with backmarker outfit HVM Racing proved a sobering experience. Despite winning the Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year award, her time with the team yielded just five top 10 finishes. However, so well received were de Silvestro s performances in a struggling car that she won a move up the field to KV Racing for 2013, where she claimed her first podium. Then the Sauber F1 team came calling. The plan was for de Silvestro to spend a year as an affiliate driver, conducting testing in a two-year-old car in preparation for a full time race seat. Had the deal worked, de Silvestro would have become the first woman to start an F1 race in four decades. The relationship didn t last. The team blamed contractual issues: paddock rumours pointed to a lack of sponsorship dollars. It s a story familiar to many others in the Formula E paddock. As a driver, you always dream about F1 or IndyCar, de Silvestro admits. When you re young you always think about those. That s where you want to go, no matter what. Then you realise it s not so much dependent on what you do it s more about how to find people who support you. It s all about money right now. De Silvestro made her Formula E debut with American team Andretti in June, at the London season finale. She shared a garage with former F1 superstar Jean-Eric Vergne, the Frenchman who set the Formula E world alight on his first outing by nabbing a pole position and very nearly a win. (He s since signed with DS Virgin Racing.) The compressed race day programme and the tight, bumpy Battersea Park track proved to be challenging, even for a driver who has experience in both F1 and IndyCar machinery. I m kind of used to street courses but London was something that was completely different, de Silvestro says. I thought that, because the car s electric, it s not going to feel as fast. It did feel pretty quick because of how the track was built. There s not much space. When you re in the car, it feels like a race car. I was trying to drive the wheels off it! Getting to grips with the tracks fast is critical in a series that offers drivers just 75 minutes of practice before qualifying begins. In Formula E, you can t do many changes because there isn t time, de Silvestro explains. You just have to deal with what you have. That s why the drivers like it. It s down to you to figure it out. Figuring it out requires brains as well as bravery and understanding how to get the best out of the electric racing car, which is not as easy as it might look. There s a lot more energy management than in any other series I ve been in, says de Silvestro. 12 / October 15 current-e.com / 13

8 FEATURES / Simona de Silvestro How you drive the car is really different, especially the braking. That s something you need a bit of time to get used to. You want to be competitive so you try to understand as much as you can, as fast as you can. You have to be pretty aggressive because there s not much practice. You have to find the limit very quickly. In other series, there s time to do that, to try different things. In Formula E, you have to be aggressive right away. Preseason testing didn t go smoothly. Andretti had set up a new technology division and worked with a NASA supplier to develop motors, but the team simply couldn t debug the new powertrain team would not be developing a powertrain in season two. It s not yet clear just how competitive or not that decision may be. On the plus side, the first season powertrain has been tried and tested and Andretti had developed their car into a very fast package one good enough to deliver Vergne a pole position on his debut and Scott Speed a second place finish on his. On the other hand, the new powertrains fielded by the likes of Renault, DS Virgin and ABT appear to be much better able to cope with the overheating issues that plagued teams in the When you ' re in the car, it feels like a race car. I was trying to drive the wheels off it! in time. De Silvestro spent most of the first five days of public preseason testing at Donington Park sat in the garage or watching other cars from the pit lane. In the end, the team chose to revert to the first season powertrain on the final day of testing. It s not what we wanted to do but we have responsibilities to the team, our drivers and our sponsors, said Roger Griffiths, the team s technical director. The regulations (at the time of going to print) do not permit the team to introduce their new powertrain later in the season, so Andretti will be one of only two teams to run the first season set-up in Ironically, the other team is Aguri, which Amlin parted ways with after it became clear that the first season, as well as being significantly more efficient. Both factors could leave Andretti for dust by mid-season. Time will tell. In the meantime, as far as de Silvestro is concerned, her immediate driving future is one powered by volts. You start looking at where you have an opportunity to actually drive and focus on the job, she says. That s what Formula E is able to do right now and I think that s why the level of drivers is high. It s the place to be right now, that s for sure. And as for being the only female driver in the paddock, de Silvestro is characteristically unperturbed. Everybody knows the drivers who are in this field know how to drive a race car, she says. I ve earned my stripes in motorsports. 14 / October 15 current-e.com / 15

9 Changing of the guard WORDS: Ross Ringham PHOTOGRAPHY: Shivraj Gohil, Dan Bathie Renault s F1 and Formula E programmes are now run under the same roof. Just how close is the electric racing team to being a full works entry? A sea of yellow was the clearest indication. Focused stares, furrowed brows and bright yellow jackets that burst with vibrancy against the swollen damp grey of the summer skies above Donington Park like those of lifeguards on a rescue mission in angry seas. It wasn t rescue emblazoned across the jackets, however, but Renault Sport. 16 / October 15 current-e.com / 17

10 FEATURES / CHANGING OF THE GUARD This year, you see more of Renault. Formula E s French team is undergoing something of a metamorphosis. In the first season, it was called e.dams-renault. The squad was essentially DAMS, the super successful French team that competes in F1 s various feeder series. Led by Jean-Paul Driot, the Formula E entity also had F1 legend Alain Prost on board, mainly in a management and sponsor relations role, and funding and technical support from Renault. For season two, the team has become one of the sport s new constructors with a home-grown powertrain, has changed its name to Renault e.dams and has dressed its trackside engineering team in signature yellow workwear. Explicitly highlighting the Renault connection at a time when the company is reportedly close to moving back into F1 with its own race team throws up several questions. Is the second season Formula E entity effectively a works team? How closely might its infrastructure be related to a nearfuture F1 race programme? How integrated are the engineering efforts? What, exactly, is Renault s intention within the sport and what might be the effects on its future in F1? It s very simple, says Alain Prost. The first season, Renault was already a sponsor, with the motivation of being part of the team for the medium and long term, especially with the development of the technology. This year, you see more of Renault. The involvement is much bigger. They have worked very hard with us on the development of the powertrain. We have the same organisation, the same drivers and engineers. It s very similar but we have more involvement from Renault. Prost is an engaging character to talk to. He speaks simply, answers all questions in a forthright manner and doesn t dance around sensitive subjects. While the relationship between Renault Sport and the Formula E team might appear to be simple, there is a lot more going on with the F1 question hanging in the air and Prost doesn t shrink from the facts. The organisation is moving at the moment, Prost admits. It is really a marketing project. All motorsports activities are led by the marketing people. We are working with Renault F1. It s difficult to answer in a precise way but the people are Renault F1 but also involved in Formula E. Renault currently supplies engines (more accurately termed power units for their attendant energy harvesting systems) to F1 teams; customers include multiple championship winning team Red Bull. The past two seasons have been rough for the car maker: a regulation change required a new power unit and Renault s has not been able to keep pace with the Mercedes solution, resulting in very public spats with Red Bull. For its part, the company is hampered in making up the deficit by stringent regulations that limit development and the company feels aggrieved that it wasn t given enough publicity in Red Bull s winning years (not an issue faced in Formula E, with Renault s name on every car on the grid in the first season). Now, the manufacturer is at a tipping point. It is exploring opportunities to make an F1 racing comeback, purchasing an existing team to create a works outfit for the first time since However, Renault is reportedly also considering leaving the sport entirely, which would include ceasing the supply of power units. Prost is said to be very closely involved in the new F1 project. My role is going to change for sure, he says of his Formula E duties. I will still be involved. No question about that. No reason not to even if I do something a little bit different. There s no strategy between F1 and Formula E in terms of running a team but we would have a common organisation. The genesis of that common organisation can be found at Renault Sport. Vincent Gaillardot is the engineer who leads Renault Sport s electrical and electronics division; he oversees both its F1 and Formula E programmes. He knows a thing or two about successful race engines, having worked with an illustrious list of names including Schumacher, Alesi and Hill. He even spent time with Prost s short-lived F1 team. I ve been involved since day one at a high level, since Renault was involved with Spark to develop the season one car, Gaillardot says of the nascent Formula E project. We gave expertise on the integration. We decided to put the Formula E project within the Renault Sport F1 activity because I ve been leading electrical and electronics projects here for more than 10 years. We have dedicated resources and a pool of experts than can sustain any electric business. Yet, the efforts of the first season race team were more attributable to the DAMS input than to Renault, Gaillardot goes on: As soon as we completed our activities as a sub-contractor to Spark, giving them integration guidelines, we were not so much involved. It was more the race team. We supported them on the simulation side, to make sure we optimised energy management. We were focused on season two. Season two afforded eight new constructors the opportunity to build their own motors, transmissions, inverters and rear suspension the complete drivetrain except for the batteries, which continue to be supplied by Williams Advanced Engineering. Developing the e.dams solution fell squarely onto the desks at Renault Sport. Five full-time Renault Sport people were assigned to the project. Among them is an engineer who counts the Toro Rosso F1 team on his CV and another who helped design the Formulec electric racing car while at Mercedes F1 (the blueprint for the Spark-Renault car). 18 / October 15 current-e.com / 19

11 FEATURES / CHANGING OF THE GUARD Despite such early involvement in the series, Renault didn t rush into its second season design programme. Everyone was looking to see where the championship would go, explains Gaillardot. The final decision was taken in December We started very late. We had six months to develop the full monty. Renault s full monty includes a two speed transmission from SADEV and a motor developed specifically for the sport (but likely adapted from the family of electric motors already used by the manufacturer). The choice was wide open, says Gaillardot of the specification process. Most of the expertise is modelling and simulation to make the right choice at the beginning. It s like with the new F1 engines: you have to convince yourself that you ve made the best choice. This is the most difficult exercise. Knowledge and technology transfer from both Renault Sport s F1 and road car projects helped inform the team s S2 solution, Gaillardot says: In Formula E, you need mechanical as well as electrical experience because you have a gearbox and a diff. You learn from the road cars. You have full torque from zero power. That is quite different from the ERS systems in F1. There you cannot use electrical power below 100kph, so your system definition is quite different. The new Renault powertrain looked like a title contender when it emerged at preseason testing, measuring up well against systems from German team ABT, which has a motor developed by Schaeffler and technical support from Audi, and Virgin, which has manufacturer support in the shape of Citroen s DS branch. The people who have hybrid experience like us, Citroen and Audi with the VW Group we benefit from this experience, Gaillardot observes. The manufacturers which are less experienced in this area, you see more problems. We know the learning curve is challenging and takes time. Development is not allowed in-season in Formula E, apart from in exceptional cases where the FIA agrees to changes on the grounds of safety or reliability. So the powertrain that Renault turns up with in Beijing is the one that it will fight to the end of the season with, for better or worse. The company is hoping that Formula E s second season doesn t turn into a rehash of its F1 troubles. Preseason testing made it difficult to accurately assess exactly how the different solutions compared, with some teams choosing not to set hero lap times and others having their programmes disrupted by technical gremlins or the sour British weather. NextEV TCR, with which Nelson Piquet won the drivers title, was one of those not to fully show their hand at testing. Too, the teams have much more control over software programming, which means they can continue working on how the powertrains perform. We have to wait for the first races to see where we are, Prost states. We re talking about performance but we re also talking about reliability. It will be a compromise for the drivers, to push harder, to be more confident under braking, but also saving energy. Efficiency is key for this competition but it s not the only parameter, agrees Gaillardot. It will be interesting to see the differences in performance on track. I think there are three teams with strong performance. The competition will be very tight. For Renault, Formula E offers a different set of challenges and opportunities to its F1 activities, which is why the car maker is gearing up to support the series in the long term. We want to make sure this championship survives with as many manufacturers are possible, says Gaillardot. We don t want to be involved in chassis or aerodynamic development. We all look at the future and we want this championship to be the most competitive it can be. Prost thinks the series has a bright future. It was a very interesting first season, he observes. It was a success, for sure. We had good races. The championship finished at the last race with a one point difference. We brought a new generation and people not normally interested in motor racing. That does not mean that we ll sleep. We have to be careful. The second season will be more difficult. We may make some small changes and make some improvements. We could be flexible. That is the advantage of this organisation. At the moment it s working quite well. With intimate knowledge of both F1 and Formula E, Gaillardot believes there s plenty of room for both to co-exist, too. F1 is well known for its visibility in new markets; FormulaE promotes what could be done with electrical vehicles, which is completely different to what Renault uses Formula 1 for, he says. The two run in parallel. With Renault stepping up its involvement on both the inside and the outside of the car (there will be a new, Renault-focused livery to come in Beijing), is it a works team in all but name? The drivers certainly seem to think so. Now it s much more like what I ve experienced in F1, says Nico Prost, who won the Miami Formula E race with the team and who has been a Lotus F1 tester. Renault is doing a lot of work and has some good people. E.dams also has some very competent people. It s a very healthy relationship. The team is much bigger now, Sebastien Buemi, the Swiss driver who won three races in the inaugural season with the team, elaborates. Buemi drives for Toyota in the WEC series; he, too, knows a thing about what a full works team feels like. There are more people involved in working on the powertrain with Renault. They re doing a great job. It always felt like a works team but it does even more now. Will the e.dams suffix disappear soon? Prost thinks not. The team is good, he says. You never know the future but Renault is happy with the organisation. There is a good ambience, a good spirit. That is very important. We have a good pair of drivers. They are consistent. From a technical point of view, without being pretentious, we should be one of the best three teams. We will have to wait for the first few races to see exactly where we are on performance and reliability. We are quite confident. 20 / October 15 current-e.com / 21

12 Mojo men A new driver, a new technical partner and a new powertrain: can Mahindra Racing turn its fortunes around? WORDS : Ross Ringham PHOTOGRAPHY : Shivraj Gohil, Dan Bathie Got my mojo working, growled blues extraordinaire Muddy Waters nearly 60 years ago, but it just don t work on you. It s a sentiment that Mahindra Racing s first season veteran Bruno Senna and the team s new signing Nick Heidfeld can identify with. Both showed flashes of something special in the first Formula E season; both failed to convert those glimpses of greatness into significant points finishes. Both began their season with abortive campaigns in Beijing. Both had dramatic crashes and needless penalties. Both are hoping that sweeping changes, new relationships and new technology will make for a much clearer path to success in season two. Last year we had some good races but for one reason or another we didn t get the results, Senna admits. The affable Brazilian fell victim to easily-damaged suspension multiple times, was penalised in Punta del Este when his mechanics didn t put his wheels on early enough, and wiped out a possible podium place in Malaysia by sliding spectacularly into the wall just a handful of corners from the finish line. His team mate, Karun Chandhok, struggled with thermal management issues and a car that never seemed to be fully pieced together. The team finished eighth out of 10 teams, scoring 58 points (victors e.dams-renault totted up 232). Some teams did a better job than we did in developing their cars, Senna says. At the end of the season, we were still having more struggles than other teams. There were a few incidents that were avoidable that put us on the back foot. Monaco-based outfit Venturi was another team that showed pace and potential but which failed, ultimately, to deliver. Ninth position and 53 points was the best that the team could manage. While racing in the black and red cars, Heidfeld suffered a series 22 / October 15 current-e.com / 23

13 FEATURES / MOJO MEN Last year we had some good races but for one reason or another we didn t get the results of incidents, accidents and penalties that destroyed his season. The cumulative effect of the issues prompted his move a move that was widely (and incorrectly) reported to have been forced upon him when the team hired Jacques Villeneuve. It was me that made the decision, he says, quietly and in a neat, precise German accent. Venturi s performance was quite good not in terms of results, but the team could have won three races. I like the people there and I was pushing very hard with them but I was not convinced that everything we were planning together could be achieved. In the end, I thought I could be more successful somewhere else. Heidfeld started having conversations in earnest in London, the last race weekend of the inaugural season. He found something of a kindred spirit in Mahindra team principal Dilbagh Gill, whose tenure as boss of the Formula E team is his first in charge of a racing team and who had himself found plenty to get to grips with. When I spoke to Dilbagh, I was quite impressed with what he understood and learned from season one, and what he already had changed for season two, Heidfeld says. They were certainly not as successful as they wanted to be in season one but I believed they understood why and what they had to change for the future. We were very fast at the beginning of the season but then we took a dip and never recovered, Gill notes. Mahindra scored 36 points in the first four races and just 12 in the next seven. By Berlin we were totally lost. The first strand of the Indian team s renewed virility is a new technical partner. Gone is Carlin, the British outfit that was responsible for handson management of the cars, as well as providing simulator and marketing support. On the energy side of things, we were always pretty strong, Gill explains. On the chassis side of things, we weren t as good. What Carlin did to get us set up was amazing. I have so much respect for those guys. The fact is that we didn t perform as well as we wanted to so we thought we should look at a different way of doing things in season two. In comes Campos Racing, which ran the NextEV TCR cars in season one and helped deliver Nelson Piquet the drivers title. The Spanish squad augments a new core of in-house personnel hired directly by Mahindra. The team has changed significantly, Senna says. The majority of the people are different. These guys are very focused, very motivated and very keen on trying many different things. It s an interesting philosophy of work. There s lots for us all to grow into. The second stage of development is Mahindra s revised second season powertrain. Evolution, not revolution, is how Gill describes the team s season two tech, which essentially uses tweaked and upgraded versions of the McLaren and Hewland units employed originally. The motor has some revised internals, the gearbox is four-speed rather than five, and a lot of work has been done to lighten the cooling systems and rear suspension. It s a far cry from the twin-motor, single speed solutions seen at (reportedly) DS Virgin Racing and NextEV TCR, or the single motor with two and three gears of Renault e.dams and ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport respectively. Our solution is not very radical, acknowledges Heidfeld. It doesn t feel a lot different to last year. That s logical because the amount of power you re allowed to use is the same in qualifying and almost the same in the race. In terms of software, we re in a good position. 24 / October 15 current-e.com / 25

14 FEATURES / MOJO MEN Senna agrees. Our powertrain is very similar, he says. You get some higher efficiency numbers. The electronics side is open so it s interesting to see how many changes you can make. You get more control over everything you re doing. Other people who have more wildly different powertrains will have felt a bigger difference in the cars. Mahindra has chosen a path that is (ironically, where Heidfeld is concerned) very similar to that of Venturi, but the team has big plans for future years when battery development opens up. Mahindra has enough money and power to do a proper job, Heidfeld says. We re already looking at season three. The team is not shy of going with a different solution if it looks better. The third component of Mahindra s bid to change its stars was a meticulously planned and executed testing programme. It was interesting to go testing again at Donington Park, Senna says. It was a lot more focused than last year. We know a lot more about the cars. Nick was very good at experimenting and bringing some very good ideas to try out. We varied many, many things. It gave us a clearer idea of direction. Heidfeld is famously analytical and likes to get under the skin of every car he drives. It s something he brought to Venturi and clearly something that has carried across to Mahindra. I enjoy the technical side a lot, he confesses. If we find a problem, I like to sit down with the engineers and discuss ideas and solutions and understand exactly what is going on. I had so many issues in season one, but I ve tried to learn and help the team not to make the same mistakes. Even at home, I cannot stop thinking about it. I bombarded the team with s. I want to improve and I want to perform better. Testing at Donington Park was hindered by heavy rain, making it difficult for the teams to wring quite as much out of their cars as they would have liked. The Mahindra drivers, however, were not overly concerned with exploring the upper limits of the car s performance envelope: for Senna and Heidfeld, the summer s watchword was reliability. Three two-day tests in three weeks that s a lot of data to process and think about, says Heidfeld. There are three favourites and I hope we can fight them. This is our target. We are not where I d wish to be but this is difficult to achieve with a relatively small team. They all work flat out and they did a fantastic job. The most important things relate to reliability and they have been solved. We did achieve a big chunk of our test programme which is quite difficult to do in six days, Senna expands. We did a good job of managing little issues with the new powertrain. It s hard to judge where we re going to be. In the end, I think we ll be in the top five. I think we ll be able to get some podiums. It s going to be tough but the one thing that we have on our side is that the car will be reliable. Other teams may struggle with that. For Heidfeld, testing was also a chance to bed into the team and begin cultivating a relationship with his new engineer. We re still getting to know each other, says the driver. It s one of the most important and probably time consuming things to do. It s the sort of relationship that needs to grow over race weekends. Formula E is unique from an engineering point of view, because there is such a short time on race day. In other series you have time to sit down and analyse and come up with ideas and put them on the car. It is different in Formula E. With the powertrain behaving itself, a chassis that seems to be under control and a team that appears more cohesive than ever before, the drivers are looking forward to being able to focus simply on racing. The racing has been better than in pretty much every other series, Senna says. The competition is strong. There s lots of overtaking on street circuits, which is quite tough. I ve always enjoyed street circuits; Monaco is up there as one of my alltime favourite tracks. The Formula E tracks were interesting. Buenos Aires was a great track, very fun to drive. Moscow was also very cool, a very challenging circuit. Punta was fun but a bit on the dangerous side because the chicanes were so fast. You risked breaking your car in half for a good lap time. The last race in London was pretty fun. Although the season was not successful, I still enjoyed it, which is probably just as important as success, Heidfeld remarks. In Beijing last year, I was unlucky. There was nothing the team or I could have done. But there were many other occasions where the team or I could have done better. The most important thing is to move forwards and to learn from what you ve done wrong. We re very excited to go to Beijing this year and find out where we stand. Both drivers are itching to get their new machinery onto Chinese tarmac in October; both are hoping that the bad luck of season one has been left far behind. There was a palpable buzz in the garage all through preseason testing and a sense of purpose. Mahindra Racing appears to have rediscovered its mojo: whether or not it will work on season two remains to be seen. A revised powertrain and driver pairing contributed to solid running at Donington Park over preseason testing. 26 / October 15 current-e.com / 27

15 The rise (and rise) of Dragon Racing The team that many doubted would even make it to the grid in Beijing in 2014 finished the maiden season second only to e.dams-renault. What does Formula E s first customer team have in store for season two? WORDS : Tom Spencer PHOTOGRAPHY : Shivraj Gohil The first Formula E season started slowly for the former IndyCar team running in matt black and silver cars, with barely a wheel turned in the first few days of preseason testing. Yet, in only the second race, experienced racer Oriol Servia started from pole. Dismissed by some as a fluke, it was actually an early indication of how quickly the team would get to grips with the new technology. Indeed, the team went on to become one of six teams to win a race and the only team to put both drivers on the same podium a feat that it achieved twice in the final four races. Dragon Racing is heading into the second season of Formula E with renewed vigour. With a red chrome livery, a Venturi powertrain and Oriol Servia running operations, the team is no longer the dark horse of the paddock. I sat down with the Spaniard to talk fast cars and rodeos. TS: You beat the likes of NextEV TCR, Virgin Racing and ABT in season one. How? OS: It was a lot of hard work no secrets, no magic bullets. We come from IndyCar and we have a lot of street racing experience in the team. We ve all been in racing for a long time, including myself as a driver; we understand that hard work doesn t mean you re going to win, but it s the biggest influence you can have on success and everyone in the team worked really, really hard. We were fast immediately, like in Malaysia when we were on pole, but while the speed was there as a team we were not working most effectively or we were not executing our performance 100%. In this championship, as much as performance is obviously important, it s really about avoiding problems and race-stoppers. For example, there s a lot of safety features in these cars where if one sensor reads that something is wrong, then it will completely stop the car, because it needs to be safe more than anything else. Even when we were on pole and I could have finished second, I went into the garage and the car just wouldn t go into gear. Then, in the third race, we put the wrong maps in the car, and in Buenos Aires we had temperature issues that were our fault so we were just making a lot of little mistakes that were costing us the chance to finish in the top five. But we knew we had the speed already in the car, so from there we began to really focus on how we operated to make sure we were getting the best out of the team. This meant spending a lot of time with our engineers, working hard to analyse, understand and improve our operations we didn t change the cars, we just worked together a little better and the results started to come. We were the only team to put two of our drivers on the podium in the same race and we did that twice, which shows how much our hard work paid off. TS: How has your role within the team changed in the past year? OS: I am another piece of the team and I am pushing in the same direction. It has been a fun experience and it was definitely great to finish second in the points, as it was a bit of a reward for all the hard work that we had put in. Now we are really motivated to go for the top spot. TS: You ve retained both Jerome d Ambrosio and Loic Duval. Easy decision? OS: Both drivers are very committed to the team. Jerome has been with us since day one and he is probably the most dedicated driver that I have ever seen. He is also always trying to not only improve his driving but also improve the team. We have two really good guys who know what to do. They know that they take out as much as they put in and it s not their first rodeo. TS: Can you go all the way in ? OS: We want to win both championships. Everybody remembers the championship winning driver and the title winning team e.dams won last year and Piquet won last year and that s what everyone knows. So we want to do that. We ve kept 80% of the people that we had last year. We ve made a couple of changes that we think will make us better, such as the powertrain that Venturi is giving us, which will be reliable and a step forward from last year. At the moment we don t know exactly where the others are. There are a couple that seem to have a little more speed than anyone right now, but this time last year some teams seemed to be a lot further ahead than they are today and we ended up catching up. We re more united than ever, we learned a lot last year and we know what we need to do to get better. We re ready to work hard again. 28 / October 15 current-e.com / 29

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17 No More Dreaming In the first Formula E season, Nelson Piquet has rebuilt his open-wheel racing reputation, secured a championship trophy and qualified for a super license. What s next? WORDS : Ross Ringham PHOTOGRAPHY : Shivraj Gohil, Dan Bathie 32 / October 15 current-e.com / 33

18 Masters / Nelson Piquet W hat a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago, Team China Racing and Nelson Piquet slid into Formula E rather quietly. Moving in without fuss or fanfare made sense for a driver with a controversial past and a team without much of a history at all. Piquet was the F1 exile who had been embroiled in one of the sport s most notorious stories. It had been half a decade since he d competed in open-wheel cars and he d barely managed any testing time before the first race in Beijing. China Racing was a government-backed venture with a record in racing that could be written on the side of an AAA battery and with no electric powertrain expertise to speak of, particularly when measured against the likes of record-breaking Venturi, manufacturing colossus Mahindra or electric car maker Renault. A year on and the team has changed its name and colours, becoming NextEV TCR and dropping its gold and red hues for greys and greens. Piquet is now the reigning Formula E champion, a title he took by a single point at the last race of the season. His performances in the electric series have helped burst open new opportunities across the motorsports world. He s tried out IndyLights and will be competing in the Race of Champions. And, lest anyone forget, Piquet s Formula E title means he now qualifies for an FIA super license the governing body s highest category of license and the one required to race in F1. It s a neat feeling, Piquet says after a long pause, when I ask him about being Formula E s first champion. He s a quiet character, not given to verbosity (although he does talk fast and freely when he s emotional for evidence, see his press conferences after race victories or his TV interview after the controversial qualifying incident in Monaco). We worked very hard. I ve been racing in some difficult series in which I had no experience. Being able to come back and beat a lot of guys I used to race proves I haven t lost anything. I m still capable of driving any sort of car. Winning the championship is a great accomplishment and a great result. The journey to the first electric title was never going to be an easy one, given the calibre of teams and drivers involved. I knew it was going to be hard because we weren t aligned with any big constructors, Piquet admits. There were some big teams there and some of them had full-on manufacturer support. At Donington, I was worried because we were so off the pace. I was thinking Is it the car, or is it me? Everybody else had done so much testing and I only got there at the end. But I also knew that all the cars would be the same and that, if we worked together, we had a chance of doing a good job. Despite the equal machinery of season one, the first two races did little to change the perception that this was an ill-fated pairing destined for the back of the grid, with just four points scored by Piquet in the opening round and none in the second thanks to a DNF. There was a lot more going on behind the scenes, however. To run technical operations, the team had engaged Campos, a slick racing outfit from Spain with years of experience in multiple series. (In fact, it was Adrian Campos himself who called Piquet with the offer to come testing in Formula E.) By the end of 2014, sponsor and technical partner Omni Gear an engineering business that works in China and the US with particular expertise in transmissions was on board. Rational Motion, a German specialist in electric motors, followed while NextEV, a start-up electric vehicle manufacturer backed by Chinese internet entrepreneurs, turned up with cash later in the season. By the third round, in Punta del Este, Uruguay, there was a distinct air of confidence in the garage. It s a smaller organisation than a lot of the teams but it s a good group of guys who are working very hard, Piquet noted at the time. Even in GP2, the small teams don t have a chance of fighting with the top teams. Piquet went on to secure a podium finish and neither he nor the team looked back. I knew the biggest difference would be the drivers, working well with the engineers and figuring out the battery management, he reflects just a few weeks before the second season begins. That was the toughest part. We got through the hard races and maximised points despite problems. We didn t make silly mistakes such as in the pit stops or driver errors. The team performed well. 34 / October 15 current-e.com / 35

19 Masters / Nelson Piquet The team behind the title NextEV Sponsor Team China Racing (TCR) Formula E Team Race to victory Led by Steven Lu and backed by the Chinese government Omni Gear Tech partner/ Sponsor Campos Tech partner Rational Motion Tech partner Points While the driver is often the focus of attention, no team is a one-person operation. Here are the elements that make up NextEV TCR, the team that delivered Nelson Piquet the championship. 0 R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 Rounds R7 R8 R9 R10 R11 Over the course of the inaugural season, Piquet proved to be a model of consistency, twinning a silky smooth driving style which suited the sensitive nature of the powertrain with the clear head needed to make strategies work amidst the hectic, fast-paced Formula E races. You re trying to be precise, clean, efficient, he says. You can t be aggressive and crazy and driving sideways. You need to be 100% smooth. You need to be calm. You work with the engineers to understand what s going on. You try to understand how it works, how it feels. You have to know why things happened and have good communication with your engineers to get the most out of it. You need them to make good strategy calls and to advise you what to do. But they need to be confident that they can ask you to take risks and you ll still deliver the numbers they need. You have to do your homework. Driving an array of different racing cars has no doubt helped Piquet bond with his machinery and his engineers quickly but getting used to the Formula E car did take some work. You don t hear an engine and the tyres are different, Piquet explained to me in the bright sunshine of Argentina. Part of the connectivity between the car and driver is the feeling the car touching the bottom, oversteering, understeering but sound is also a part. It shapes the way you treat the gearbox, how much you rev the engine. For some drivers, it doesn t matter how loud the engine is or how big the vibration is, our bodies like it. It s like meditating. Season two cars are noticeably louder on track but the cockpit is still a pretty quiet place to be. It s not an issue for Piquet, however. You forget about it, he explains. You get concentrated and get into the zone. You re thinking about braking late, this corner, that corner, the little bits and pieces to put a good lap together. It just becomes a race car. Piquet won two races over the course of 11 rounds. The first was the Long Beach event. There was a sense of history already having been written when the April round arrived: Piquet s father had secured his first F1 victory at Long Beach some 35 years previously. Piquet arrived at the paddock with a helmet designed to mimic his father s and a determination to win. There was a bit of history involved but I knew we could win a race because we were the quickest car by far in Miami, he explains. There was no excuse any more. I was just so eager to win a race. Long Beach was a remarkable performance. Piquet simply disappeared, driving away from the pack as if he was in another car. It was reminiscent 36 / October 15 current-e.com / 37

20 Masters / Nelson Piquet of Bird s dominance in Putrajaya and equally as demoralising to those trying to catch up. It made Piquet the sixth different winner in six races, ample evidence that the series did offer a level playing field. Piquet would have to wait until the season s penultimate venue, Moscow, for his second win. It was another fine display of calculation and precision, with Piquet holding off championship rival Lucas di Grassi in the closing laps of the race. Team sources told me that they d changed their signature strategy for that race; up until that point, Piquet had tended to be conservative early on, protecting his energy until the latter stages of the race. In Russia, he rocketed off the line and blasted through his energy so fast it had looked as though he d taken leave of his senses. Yet, it was all part of a plan: he was simply buying himself track time and taking his rivals by surprise. Piquet is typically pragmatic when asked about it. I was leading the race so I had to control it, he says. When you re defending it s a different strategy to when you re attacking. It was nothing special. In the end, it all came down to the final race. Lucas di Grassi, who had led the title charge for much of the season, had suffered a catastrophic loss of points when he was disqualified from the Berlin race results. Then Sebastien Buemi won the first event of the London double-header, putting him within five points of Piquet with one race left. Sunday June 28 arrived. Piquet s luck seemed to have run out. The British summer delivered what it does best unpredictability and changeability. The only rain of the entire season fell in qualifying, sending di Grassi back to P11 and Piquet to P16 on the grid. We got unlucky, says Piquet. It rained and we started at the back. I just had to do my best. I had nothing to lose. What a race it turned out to be, with closely fought competition everywhere on track. Di Grassi and Piquet drove superbly to close up on Buemi, who had started in P6. Buemi, for his part, spun his car and lost the chance to progress up the field, getting stuck behind Senna who refused to yield an inch. The three championship contenders crossed the finish line together: Buemi, di Grassi, Piquet. Venturi driver Stephane Sarrazin had finished first but had used all of his permitted energy, which meant that everyone had to wait to find out how penalties applied by the stewards would affect the points. We had some luck and a good strategy, Piquet says. Part of that luck included his team mate being in front of him, as well as another driver signed to the same management company as Piquet; the Brazilian dispatched both effortlessly. Sebastien made a mistake and spun. Everything came together. You need a bit of luck. At the beginning of the day luck was not on our side but it was at the end. I just went for it. SEASON Wins: 2 06/Long Beach 09/Moscow POLES:0 Podiums: 5 03/Punta del Este 04/Buenos Aires 06/Long Beach 07/Monaco 09/Moscow Fastest Laps: 2 05/Miami 08/Berlin Total Points: 144 Championship Position. P1 From top: Piquet captured at speed at Long Beach; celebrating his first victory; on media duty after winning in Moscow; celebrations in parc ferme in London as he becomes the first Formula E champion. On his slow down lap, Piquet sat alone in the cockpit, waiting for news. Then came word that Sarrazin had been given a time penalty; the reshuffled result meant that Piquet won the championship by a single point. Commentator Jack Nicholls spoke directly to Piquet in the cockpit via the radio before the driver had heard the decision. Have I won the championship? Piquet asked. By our calculations, you have, Nicholls confirmed. I don t know what to say, said Piquet, before bursting into tears. It was a fitting response to a fraught race, an emotional rollercoaster of a season and the dawning realisation that, finally, Piquet had come in from the cold. What s next? Piquet has chosen to remain with the team and the sport, despite lucrative offers from elsewhere. They gave me the opportunity, they gave me the chance, he says. So now I m giving them the chance to deliver in season two to win another championship. We re still a small team compared to others but we re more efficient and we did a better job last year. Smarter people with smaller budgets can compete. With Formula E s next season looming, Piquet has put all thoughts of the first championship out of his mind and is back to his routine of hard work and diligent preparation. It s all done and dusted now and we have to fight for a second title, he says. You enjoy it for a few days after but then you start working on the second one. It s time to stop dreaming and time to start working. It never ends. NextEV TCR is one of the sport s new manufacturer teams, fielding a radical new powertrain with twin motors and a single speed transmission. The car feels very different, Piquet says. No more gear changing. There s different software. There s a little bit more to play with but it s hard to say where we are. I think you ve still got to look at e.dams and Virgin and ABT. We have to do the best job with the car that we have. We can win a second championship if the car goes well. If things don t work well I ll go to another team. After some turbulent years, Piquet is firmly back in the driving seat of his racing career. What does the future hold for the electric racing champion? I don t plan anything, he explains. I just want to be racing. I just want to be earning a living in racing cars. I love it. Any situation where I have a good team, a good environment, a situation that lets me win races, I would go. There are plenty of drivers who care more about driving a backmarker car in F1 than winning races in Formula E. That s not my view. I don t understand going to a race weekend and knowing you re not going to win a race. I want to be competing in something I can win. The better you do, the better the results are, the more you enjoy it. WRC, DTM, Le Mans, F1 - I ll go wherever there s a winning opportunity. What a difference a year makes. 38 / October 15 current-e.com / 39

21 The one that got Despite claiming more race wins than anyone else, Sebastien Buemi missed out on the first Formula E drivers title by a single point. Discipline will win him the second, he believes. WORDS : Ross Ringham PHOTOGRAPHY : Rajan Jandga, Shivraj Gohil away I t all came down to the last lap of the last race. On the narrow confines of the Battersea Park track, Swiss racer Sebastien Buemi was tucked in behind Bruno Senna. To take the first Formula E drivers championship, Buemi simply needed to get past the Brazilian. One overtake for the title. Senna had other ideas, however. He was closing in on his best finish of the season, which would help him retain his race seat. He would not be moved aside, regardless of how much Buemi harried and darted and pressed. As the finish line rushed up, Buemi s championship rivals, di Grassi and Piquet, sat directly behind him. All he could hope for was that they would do something silly. It didn t happen. As the trio completed the race distance, Piquet won the championship by a single point. Buemi, who had dominated preseason testing with his searing pace and who had won three races more than anyone else could do nothing but watch. There are many places where we lost the championship, so I won t point out one single event, 40 / October 15 current-e.com / 41

22 Masters / Sebastien Buemi SEASON Buemi says, reflecting on a tumultuous season that brought agony as well as the sublime. Altogether we had a very good package. The team did a good job in giving me a great car. There were so many moments that you could say were highlights. We will address the small mistakes. The season started badly for Buemi. In Beijing, he ricocheted off the aggressive kerbs and concrete walls while, somewhat unexpectedly, his team mate led almost every single lap of the race from pole position. The first race was not good for me, Buemi concedes. The second round looked to be going much the same way. Buemi was penalised when his car was found to be below the minimum weight after qualifying in Malaysia, pushing him almost to the very back of the grid. Incredibly, however, he scythed through the field to finish on the podium in third position. Buemi would go on to win the next race, in Punta del Este, repeating the feat in Monaco and in London (the first race of the double header season finale). As well as standing on the podium s top step more times than anyone else, Buemi was also the first driver to claim a second win: until Monaco, each round had seen a different winner. He remains the only driver to have converted pole position into victory, doing so both in Monaco and in London. The penultimate weekend of the first season, in Moscow, proved disastrous for Buemi. The team got his pit stop horribly wrong. Not only was he held in the garage for a full 10s longer than required, he was then penalised after he was released directly into the path of an oncoming vehicle. What had looked like a certain second place finish ended up as P9. As far as Buemi is concerned, however, the past is the past. Season one is history now, he says. I will learn from my mistakes and I will try to continue from where I left off in London. We will go to Beijing and start a new season. We ll start from scratch. The new season includes a new powertrain and a lot more involvement from Renault. Buemi is cautiously optimistic about the team s chances after a solid, if not spectacular, summer of preseason testing. The main thing will be reliability, especially for the teams that have come up with completely new powertrains, he explains. We need to work hard to improve reliability and to extract the maximum from the car. There is a much bigger team now. Renault is doing a great job. It always felt like a works team but it does even more so now. The involvement of F1 legend Alain Prost as one of the team s chiefs has helped too, Buemi says: I didn t know what to expect but Alain is a big help to the team. It s a big positive to have him. He understands what you mean and he understands how you re feeling. He doesn t interfere with the engineers but when he has an idea it s always good. Formula E has already silenced many critics and Buemi is full of praise for how Formula E organisers and teams have gone about their business. We were able to gain a lot of respect from all the other categories and drivers, he says of the sport s development through the first season. It s growing fast. It s growing well. Key to that growth will be a race in the heart of Paris. Formula E s French connections are myriad: Spark, the maker of the Formula E chassis, is French; there are two French car makers on board (Renault and Citroen s DS brand); Michelin is the tyre supplier; and there are plenty of famous French faces involved, including Alain and Nico Prost and Jean-Eric Vergne. Frenchman Jean Todt, who happens to be the FIA president, is also a keen supporter of the series. Having the home race in Paris will be amazing, Buemi says. France loves motorsport. It s not like going to a country with no racing history. It will make a real difference. I m looking forward to going there. Buemi expects the show to improve in season two, with faster lap times resulting from a combination of improved powertrain efficiency, more power in race mode and driver familiarity with the tracks. The car is still very similar to the first year but we ll see some improvements in lap times due to the new powertrains and the drivers having more experience, he says. It s not like in F1 or WEC where you have time to go and find the absolute limit. The race day goes so quickly in Formula E so there is some margin to improve. The racing will be quicker too because we have 20kW more. As far as a season two title tilt goes, the Swiss driver is looking no further than preparing for an error-free Beijing race. This championship is all about discipline, says Buemi. There s a lot of things you have to respect to stay in control, as a driver and as a team. If you do the basics right, you ll do a good job. We did a great job but we can still do better. Wins: 3 03/Punta del Este 07/Monaco 10/London POLES: 3 04/Buenos Aires 07/Monaco 10/London Podiums: 5 02/Putrajaya 03/Punta del Este 07/Monaco 08/Berlin 10/London Fastest Laps: 1 09/Moscow Total Points: 143 Championship Position. P2 From top: victory in Punta del Este; on the way to pole position in Monaco; smiles from team bosses Prost and Driot in Uruguay; and triumph in the first London race. 42 / October 15 current-e.com / 43

23 Mr President? For Lucas di Grassi, there s a bigger prize to play for beyond Formula E s second title. WORDS: Ross Ringham PHOTOGRAPHY: Shivraj Gohil T ime at the top for professional athletes is often tumultuous and short-lived. It s no different for racing drivers, who are often seen as past their sell-by date once they creep into their thirties. For those who, like Lucas di Grassi, have raced in the upper echelons of the sport for years, money is not the issue once retirement looms. The bigger question for these particularly motivated individuals with a habit of self-improvement and a carefully nurtured determination to beat the competition is simply what next? Why not be the president of the FIA? says di Grassi, when I ask what his plans are beyond WEC and Formula E. I pause, to see whether he s joking. I ought to know better. Di Grassi is an intense character, utterly absorbed in the moment, the model of focus. Idle remarks are not his hallmark. The top job is one hell of an ambition, I say. You have to be ambitious, replies the Brazilian. It would be a good target. Maybe I ll run a team first, or maybe an area within a championship. I don t discard the idea of using my knowledge to get involved in commercial road vehicles. But why not be the president? Why not, indeed. In Formula E, di Grassi may have the perfect blueprint for a successful presidential campaign in years to come. Buying into Alejandro Agag s dream early, the Audi works driver and former F1 racer has had much more of a hand in realising the all-electric category than many realise. The Brazilian became the cornerstone of the Spark chassis development programme, assisting a consortium that includes racing institutions McLaren, Williams, Dallara and Michelin turn the idea of an electric single seater racing car into reality. He raised the profile of the nascent sport by driving demos in cities around the world, including a particularly memorable spin through Las Vegas under police escort. He was instrumental in pulling together members of the Formula E drivers club (essentially, a means by which established racers endorsed the new series and expressed interest in racing in the category). He was the first driver to publicly sign up to race in the new sport. And, less publicly, he helped entice both ABT and Virgin into fielding Formula E teams. I saw the vision, di Grassi puts it himself. It was clear that electric mobility would become the norm in the near future. I believed in Alejandro. Other people didn t believe in the project: I went against pretty much everyone I talked to. Having proved himself unafraid to stand up against the tide of popular opinion, di Grassi is determined to distinguish himself from among his contemporaries on track as well as away from it. Yet, while he may have been instrumental in 44 / October 15 current-e.com / 45

24 Masters / LUCAS DI GRASSI getting Formula E off the ground, Di Grassi had no advantage when it came to the racing. I did not test the final car; I helped with the concept and the minimum requirements to make the car fun to drive and fun for spectators, he says. So to race with ABT was an unknown how to deal with the battery, the car, how to set it up properly and so on. The first season was about learning. It s entirely fitting that the man who had invested so much of his time and reputation to help launch Formula E should win the first ever race of the fledgling series. Di Grassi picked his way through the wreckage at the very last corner of that race, the remnants of a dramatic collision between front runners Prost and Heidfeld, to make history. Beijing would prove to be di Grassi s only recorded race win. Despite notching up six podiums throughout the season, the ABT driver only crossed the line first again in the Berlin race the eighth round and the home race for his team but he was later disqualified when illegal modifications were found to have been made to the front wing and fairings of his car. The team maintains they simply made necessary repairs to a part damaged in transit. The stewards disagreed. I managed to control that race like nobody did before, with a car that has no better performance than anyone else on the grid, di Grassi says. It showed great dominance. You learn the hard way. The rules were made very strict for us in that race. How do you repair a wing that was damaged in Long Beach and goes directly to Monaco, for example? This was tricky not just performance, but logistics also. That incident cost di Grassi 25 valuable points in the drivers championship, losing him the lead and promoting lifelong rival Nelson Piquet. It was a deficit that di Grassi could not overcome in the final three races of the season. He finished third 11 points behind Piquet. Di Grassi has no time for regrets, however. The championship has gone there is nothing to discuss, he says. We have to focus on the future. We have to make sure we do not make the same mistakes again. For the second season, di Grassi has remained at ABT. The German team is one of the sport s new constructors, using a three-gear system developed with Schaeffler and Hewland, with technical support from Audi itself. Di Grassi is convinced he s in the right place, despite lucrative offers from elsewhere in the paddock. Season two is a much more complex scenario for the team, he explains. It s not only the hardware but the software, the amount of people hours you need, so that it s more reliable and more efficient as well as better. We know much more about the racing and about the championship SEASON Wins: 1 01/Beijing POLES:0 Podiums: 6 01/Beijing 02/Putrajaya 03/Punta del Este 06/Long Beach 07/Monaco 09/Moscow Fastest Laps: 1 10/London Total Points: 133 Championship Position. P3 From top: Celebrations in parc ferme at winning the first race; champagne on the Beijing podium; jubilation after an astonishing drive in Putrajaya; the infamous British weather blights qualifying at the last race. but we have much more complex problems to solve. For me, I made the right choice to stay with this team. It has the technical background to be very competitive, even against more direct manufacturers, such as Renault and Citroen. We have a lot of new people. Overall I think it s a positive change. Di Grassi wasted no time demonstrating his resolve during preseason testing at Donington Park, registering the fastest lap time set by a Formula E car in testing ever at the track. He s cautious when assessing his chances for the season, however: The car feels very similar. The whole drivetrain is more efficient. It has been improved in many ways. How much, we ll see. We have no idea about the efficiency of the others. We ll try to win every race, and optimise the car race by race. Despite the technical advancements in the powertrain, the battery is one area di Grassi concerned about. The critical point in the end will be battery management with the new 170kW race mode, he says. What I don t want is to have a championship that is decided by the batteries their reliability or temperature issues. We need a constant, equal power source. While di Grassi agrees that the cars and the Williams batteries were very reliable in the first season, he s still clearly haunted by the races where he struggled with battery issues. Moscow was one such race: he had plenty of energy remaining with which to attack race leader Nelson Piquet but thermal limits prevented him pushing as hard as he would have liked. As befits a possible presidential candidate, di Grassi is not just thinking about the racing in Formula E he has one eye on a bigger picture: As the championship stabilises and puts its roots in the ground, manufacturers will join. The technical roadmap needs to be decided soon, it needs to be decided quickly. We need to use technology that is commercially relevant and adapt the sporting regulations. This will give security to manufacturers and give them confidence to invest in their factories. Opening up the scope of technical innovation is something di Grassi is keen to see. The electric motor is so efficient and it can operate in such a wide range, he says. You could take off the gearbox and differentials. You could have one motor controlling each wheel, the braking and accelerating: four motors and torque vectoring. It s the future of the electric car industry. For now, di Grassi is content to concentrate on the present, where he s happy competing with Audi in WEC and ABT in Formula E. In the short term, I ll drive for a few more years in WEC and in Formula E, he says. I wouldn t change this for anything at the moment. I cannot be in a better moment. 46 / October 15 current-e.com / 47

25 SHARP SHOOTER The success of Dragon Racing was down to old-fashioned hard work, says Jerome D Ambrosio. Nothing flashy and no shooting from the hip. WORDS: Ross Ringham PHOTOGRAPHY: Shivraj Gohil, Dan Bathie I f ever a racing team s livery could define its performance, Dragon Racing would be a prime example. In season one, the team s cars ran in a matt-black colour scheme, with sparing silver accents. Driver Jerome D Ambrosio favoured a dark helmet with minimal coloured flashes. It was all very understated. Stealthy, almost. The team went about its business in a similarly low-key fashion, attracting very little attention throughout the season but managing to finish second only to the dominant e.dams-renault squad in the teams championship, securing a win along the way. Even for those in the paddock, it was all a bit baffling. We were never really flashy, D Ambrosio agrees. He has piercing blue eyes, favours a stubbly chin and seems to be almost permanently smiling. We just worked hard. It might be a kind of standard answer but, in this case, it s what worked. Small improvements. 48 / October 15 current-e.com / 49

26 Masters / JEROME D Ambrosio SEASON Wins: 1 08/Berlin POLES: 0 Podiums: 3 08/Berlin 10/London 11/London Fastest Laps: 0 Total Points: 113 Championship Position. P4 Rewind a year and the team s first season achievement is all the remarkable. At Donington Park in 2014, D Ambrosio was testing with Team China Racing, which would go on to deliver Nelson Piquet the drivers championship. At the Dragon Racing garage, there may as well have been tumbleweed blowing past the shutters. Many believed the team would not even turn up in Beijing, so far behind did they appear to be. There were so many things to catch up on, D Ambrosio remembers. He was the surprise signing for Dragon nabbed, it seemed, right from under the nose of China boss Steven Lu: I jumped in the car and everything felt pretty natural. In the end, that didn t go ahead. I spoke to Jay and we connected right away. We had a chat for about an hour, right here in Donington after one of the tests. We got on the same page and I decided to join the team. For the last test, I was here. But it was very late. There was so much catching up to do. It was a shock to most when Dragon managed to put its cars at the front of the grid at only the second race, in Putrajaya. Oriol Servia, D Ambrosio s team mate in the first half of the season, started from pole after fastest man Nico Prost had to serve a penalty held over from the previous race. D Ambrosio himself put in a qualifying lap good enough for second but was penalised for a power infringement, which meant starting from the back of the grid. Whereas Servia slipped down the order to finish in seventh, D Ambrosio made it across the line in fifth. At the time, Dragon s pace was attributed more to the fact that overheating worries in Malaysia had prompted set up changes that had undone the summer s work of the front-running teams. It actually turned out to be the only warning shot Dragon would fire on its way to breezing past the likes of ABT, Virgin and NextEV (as China became) in the teams race. We didn t lose ourselves, D Ambrosio explains. We never made huge changes on the car. We tried to make one step forwards at a time. It took maybe a little more time but at least the advancements we made were advancements. It was not like shooting from the hip, where you could get it right or wrong. That was the key for us. A string of consistent performances began to pay off. In Berlin, D Ambrosio crossed the line in second place. That was converted to a win after victor Lucas di Grassi was disqualified when his car failed a post-race inspection. That second place already felt like a victory for the team, says D Ambrosio. It did for me, being back on the podium for the first time in so many years. That was clearly the highlight of the championship for me. And with two podiums in London, we really finished the season on a high. That high included 171 teams championship points; D Ambrosio finished the season fourth in the drivers championship, 31 points adrift of winner Piquet. For season two, Dragon has bought a powertrain from Venturi, becoming the first customer team of the series. The package is essentially a reworked version of the first season s technology, with an upgraded McLaren motor, a four-speed Hewland transmission in place of a five gear unit, and revised software. It s very similar to what we had last year, says D Ambrosio after spending some days in the new car. The electric motor is much better better working range, better with temperature. There are improvements but, in terms of driving the car itself, there s not a huge difference. I think where we will see the difference is energy consumption. Braking remains difficult, says the Belgian, despite upgraded components. You re in qualifying and you re at the end of the straight and it feels like you re doing 400kph because you never really know the car is going to stop, he says. It s so difficult to handle between the regen and brake balance and so on. The new brakes come in earlier but it doesn t change the fundamentals of it, that you have something that varies (the balance between regen and brake bias). It s a really big challenge. That hasn t changed and you never really get used to it. You just learn to drive around it. Dragon Racing has now thrown out the matt black and, with it, any effort to slip into the second season unnoticed. The new cars are resplendent in gleaming red chrome far more fitting for a team named after a fire-breathing beast. It is, in fact, rather flashy but D Ambrosio is ready to step into the electric racing spotlight. Formula E is my main programme, he says. People jumped into this and thought it s a side project. There are more race weekends in Formula E than in DTM and DTM is not a side programme. Formula E is a full time series. This is my priority. 50 / October 15 current-e.com / 51

27 Fighting fire with fire To reel in Renault e.dams, Virgin has found its own French car maker. Season one veteran Sam Bird is looking forward to adding to his trophy collection with DS. 52 / October 15 current-e.com / 53

28 Masters / Sam Bird WORDS: Ross Ringham PHOTOGRAPHY: Shivraj Gohil, Dan Bathie It was a topsy-turvy season for Virgin Racing. Keen to introduce stability early on, the British team was the first to announce its driver line up, bagging street circuit specialist Sam Bird and former Red Bull protégé Jaime Alguersuari. The plan seemed to be working, with a podium finish for Bird in the first ever race and a crushing win in the second. Then the team s performance fell away. Bird scored 40 points in his first two races and 36 in the following eight. We hit the ground running at the beginning of the year and we finished the season very strongly, Bird says. But there was a time in the middle when we couldn t get more than a couple of points in each round. That was very difficult. Bird had shown superior energy management skills in Beijing and an unbelievable turn of pace in Putrajaya, which made the string of poor results that followed all the more baffling. We have to look back and wonder if we maximised what we had, he says. Was I driving to the best of my ability? Was the team giving me the best car? The issues came to a head in Miami, where Bird was challenging for the lead of the race up until the pit stops. He stayed out for an additional lap and ended up tumbling down the order. I look back at Miami with disappointment: we might not have won it but we would certainly have ended up on the podium, he says. That was 15 points lost. By Long Beach, we were a long way back in the championship hunt and we ran out of time. Although the team had found pace early on, they didn t really know why, which made it very difficult to translate the performance across to different tracks. In the end, the team admitted defeat and hit the reset button. We went back to basics in London, Bird says. It worked. Bird won the final race of the season in a measured, calculating drive. He crossed the line behind Stephane Sarrazin but the Venturi driver had exceeded his energy usage and was immediately demoted. Bird had pushed him hard in the closing laps of the race in a bid to do just that. To win at your home race is very special, Bird says. The strategy worked very well and we had the speed to carry out that procedure. However, the square-jawed Brit ranks his Malaysia victory higher. The win in Malaysia was very important to the whole team, he says. It was the first ever win for Virgin Racing, a massive achievement. We won commandingly, too. It was very special. While Bird s individual achievements are impressive, Virgin could manage only a fifth place finish in the team standings, nearly 100 points behind runway winners e.dams Renault. In a bid to match the experience and resources of Renault, Virgin has partnered DS, part of French car giant Citroen, for season two. Bird is confident that the team s new powertrain and the additional resources of DS will level the playing field. DS coming on board is a great thing for the team, Bird says. They re not in Formula E just to participate: they re in it to win. It ll be tough in their first season but they are giving us to the tools to do it. The DS Virgin Racing powertrain remains firmly under wraps, although we believe the system uses twin motors and either a single or twin speed transmission. Bird reckons this revamped drivetrain will come into its own once the season begins. Testing has been solid; acceleration and braking are very strong and reliability looks good, he says. High speed corners are not its forte. ABT seems to have the advantage at 200kW but we ll really find out where we are in Beijing. On the other side of the garage, Bird has a new team mate fittingly for the new Anglo-French squad, a Frenchman. Jean-Eric Vergne proved to be something of a qualifying king in the first season with Andretti, although he struggled with thermal management issues in the races. In contrast, Bird seldom qualified particularly well but his racecraft was second to none. The partnership has got many excited. His qualifying record was extremely strong but I ve been matching him in preseason testing, Bird says. There s a lot of mutual respect. We ll share everything for the good of the team. If we get to the final race and there s two points between us, obviously it will be different! The team is in a much better place compared to this time last year. We re ready to win more races. SEASON Wins: 2 02/Putrajaya 11/London POLES: 0 Podiums: 3 01/Beijing 02/Putrajaya 11/London Fastest Laps: 2 04/Buenos Aires 11/London Total Points: 103 Championship Position. P5 From top: Victory in Putrajaya; a top step finish at Bird s home race; at speed through the Battersea Park circuit; the team finishes on a high at the final race. 54 / October 15 current-e.com / 55

29 Man. Myth. Legend. (The making of) Nico Prost surprised many with his pace in Formula E. The new sport is allowing him to step out of the shadow cast by his famous surname and he s wasting no time in doing so. WORDS: Ross Ringham PHOTOGRAPHY: Shivraj Gohil, Dan Bathie Say Prost to most sports fans never mind motor racing fans and they ll tell you stories of Alain Prost, the curly-haired, quietly-spoken and intensely cerebral French racing driver who won four F1 titles and whose battles with another legend, Senna, are inscribed in the history books. Say Prost to Formula E fans, however, and you ll get a very different answer. Nico Prost, son of Alain, came into the new sport as something of an underdog. His father is one of the chiefs of the Renault e.dams team and his remarkable success as a driver casts a long shadow. The team s other racer is Sebastien Buemi, the Swiss driver who won the 2014 WEC crown and whom Prost senior described as one of the best drivers in Formula E. Too, much of the rest of the field has competed in F1 or IndyCar the big leagues of single-seater racing which Prost hasn t. Yet it would take just one unusually sunny afternoon in Beijing to thrust the younger Prost into the world s consciousness. It was an afternoon that opened an entirely new chapter in the Prost ledger. It will always remain in my mind, says Nico Prost, speaking nearly a year later. He has the same wild hair that tumbles across his ears as his father did in his heyday. He also has the same mesmerising eyes, the colours of which you can never be entirely sure. In fact, with his helmet on and visor up, it s very hard to tell the difference between father and son. The incident Prost is referring to is that horrific crash on the last corner of the 56 / October 15 current-e.com / 57

30 Masters / NICO PROST Beijing 2014 race. It was an event that Prost had seized by the scruff of the neck, winning pole and going on to lead almost every single lap. On the other side of the garage, hotshot Buemi had a torrid time but Prost was silky smooth and deadly fast. For Renault, headline sponsor of the e.dams team, it seemed to be the perfect start to its electric racing campaign. Until On the final straight, Venturi s Nick Heidfeld tried to outbrake Prost for the lead. Prost jinked, the two collided and Heidfeld was sent flying through the air in a crash that made the evening news around the world. It was not intentional, Prost explains. He still sounds upset by the incident 12 months later. I moved on the line. I didn t see him. The best thing is that he wasn t hurt. I apologised. I discussed the matter with Nick, who was the most important person to talk to. That night, I was not thinking about losing the race but about what could have happened to Nick. It was a tough start to the season but one that underlined one simple fact: despite the mistake, Prost is every inch the racing driver. He went on to set the fastest lap in qualifying in the very next race (before being demoted as punishment for causing the Beijing crash). Qualifying pace has been quite good, overall, he says, in his typically understated manner. It s always been one of my strengths. Even in F1, when I was testing for Lotus, I was always fast on a single lap. I won two poles. In Long Beach, I missed pole by nine thousandths of a second. He was aided by a strong team which had quickly got to grips with the car, demonstrated in Buemi s blistering pace over preseason testing at Donington Park in We had good pace a little bit earlier on than the other teams and I was consistent, Prost says. It s important to be consistent in a really competitive championship. Pressure mounted from his own team mate (whom Prost describes as a super nice guy ). In the second race, Buemi drove through the entire field to end up on the podium. In December, at the third round, he claimed the top spot. It was a tough event for Prost, who was bitterly disappointed when he was penalised for a power infringement. An FIA sensor failed and was giving some wrong values, he explains. They gave me a drive through penalty. I think I was just a second behind Seb at that point. The next day we had a test day. We kept the same settings and we were a long way from overshooting. It took until March and the fifth race of the series for Prost to find his stride again. And what a race that turned out to be, with Prost and Andretti deubutant Scott Speed duelling for first place over the final few laps. It was a really good race, Prost SEASON Wins: 1 06/Miami POLES: 2 01/Beijing 02/Putrajaya Podiums: 1 06/Miami Fastest Laps: 1 06/Long Beach Total Points: 89 Championship Position. P6 From top: Prost with his father Alain; victory in Miami; on track in Beijing; celebrating his win with wife Delphine. agrees. We did a really good job of saving energy but Scott was coming back really strong. Then we started to push. I clipped the wall and bent the wishbone on the first corner of the last lap. I was really lucky. It was a spectacular win and Prost was a popular victor. What made it more special for the Frenchman was that his wife, his brother and his sister-in-law were all there too, as well as his father. The podium became quite the family affair. It was really nice to win with your family there, he says. Halfway through the season, Prost was in a position to challenge for the drivers title but it was not a position he would maintain. I lost a bit pace towards the end of the season, he says. Every weekend, something went a little bit wrong. I was struggling to get comfortable with the brakes. In Berlin, I was never really fast. In Moscow, I had fast sectors but again I was chasing the brakes. Seb and I have different driving styles so maybe I just put more stress on the brakes. Despite disappointments and heartache and Prost is a character who wears his heart on his sleeve he doesn t play the blame game. Everyone has good luck and bad, good times and bad times, Prost reflects. I need to keep working and get better for the next season. I can do better. Renault e.dams is one of the sport s new constructors in season two and looks to have a very fast package. We ve improved the car in a few areas but everything came together a little bit late, says Prost. Testing has been a little bit rough. We had a few issues with the gearbox. We were tight on time and it was a big challenge. While the chassis remains the same, Renault has sourced new motors, inverters, transmissions and suspension. It s always a compromise with weight, torque and other factors, says Prost, but we think the pace you see at Donington will not be too different from what we see in the races. The car is a lot nicer to drive. We have a lot more control. We re very happy with the package that we have. Despite the French squad appearing to have one of the three strongest powertrains (alongside ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport and DS Virgin Racing), Prost remains cautious in his outlook: We can t really know if everyone had their final package at Donington so we don t really know how much the others have improved. We can t be overconfident. If season one gave Prost his own strong claim to the family name, season two could be where the French driver begins to craft his own legacy, especially as the sport grows in stature. Formula E has proved to be a fantastic championship, he says. For sure, this year I have my eyes on the title. If I can keep the pace in the first half of the season I can fight for the championship. I m confident. 58 / October 15 current-e.com / 59

31 come BACK? Will the comeback kid Antonio Felix da Costa is the only Formula E race winner not to have been re-signed over the summer. Is the sport missing a trick? WORDS: Ross Ringham PHOTOGRAPHY: Shivraj Gohil, Dan Bathie The signing of Antonio Felix da Costa in the summer of 2014 was widely regarded as A Very Good Thing. The driver was the right sort of age to appeal to Formula E s younger audiences, had a heavyweight racing record and was one of Red Bull s rising stars. He d missed out on an F1 seat by a hair s breadth but had landed a works DTM drive instead. He was fresh faced and ready for the big stage. He was just the sort of driver that Formula E could build a legacy around. The Portuguese driver was signed by Amlin Aguri, initially partnering Katherine Legge. It was a driver choice of some boldness, one that showed off the intent of both the sport and the team. In the race simulations run at Donington Park as part of preseason testing, Felix da Costa wasted no time showing off his speed and race craft, gliding through a field of his contemporaries with ease. It was a promising start; the season, however, eventually conspired to deny Felix da Costa the opportunity to really deliver on his potential. The opening race, in Beijing, clashed with a DTM fixture, which meant Felix da Costa skipped the first Formula E round. It was a bit of a sketchy start, he reflects. Missing that race meant it was basically two months between driving the car in testing and getting into it in Malaysia. It was a challenge trying to get up to speed with everything, trying to understand all the data from the first race and we lost around nine seconds in the pits. But we could have finished in the top five there, which was a surprise and gave us all a boost. The Aguri team had a bigger job to do in fielding technical staff than many others on the grid. Many of the teams used established technical partners to run their race operations, with the likes of Campos, Carlin, ABT, DAMS and Super Nova all present; Dragon Racing and Andretti could call on their extensive IndyCar experience. The team was basically a start up, explains Felix da Costa. We started to get a mechanic from here, 60 / October 15 current-e.com / 61

32 Masters / ANTONIO FELIX DA COSTA an engineer from there. It was hard to fight teams that had been together for many years. But once we got into the groove, everything went quite well. I was consistently in the points, even with some bad qualifying. I m proud of what we achieved. The bright blue car proved to have decent race pace but was wayward when it came to qualifying. On Formula E s tight street circuits, that gave the driver quite a headache. I didn t have a good feeling in the car in qualifying, Felix da Costa explains. (He went as far as calling it dangerous at one race.) You have to put it all together grip from the tyres, the balance of the car, the power settings. If you don t have all of that working right then you start a long way back. We knew we had a good car in the race. The set up was very easy on the car and on the tyres and we could save lots of energy but it was just not quick enough in qualifying. Qualifying woes made it seem unlikely that Aguri would ever bag a podium, never mind a win. And then Argentina arrived. Buenos Aires was a bit special because it came to us, Felix da Costa admits. I was really ill the day before, with a fever. I made it to the track to do shakedown and that was it. But I qualified eighth and was running in sixth for most of the race. I gained two spots in the pit stop and that s where I should have finished if I m honest. Then the guys in front started making mistakes. Buemi hit the wall, di Grassi had suspension failure, Bird had a drive through penalty. It was a good comeback. Seeing the enjoyment on everyone s faces that day was very special. That would be the only win of the season for Felix da Costa and for the team. Surprisingly, it s not his highlight of the season. Berlin was a big highlight, he says. I was probably going to finish on the podium after a problem in qualifying meant I had to come from the last row of the grid. I had so many overtaking manoeuvres. After the pit stop, we were P6. It turned into a bittersweet event, however. Then I had a drive through penalty because we were two tenths under the minimum pit stop time, he goes on. I finished 14s off P2 and the drive through was about 20s. It was a calculation error. Everyone was pushing it to the limit and we pushed a little too much. That was very painful. The driver doesn t blame the team for errors: In Moscow I had a throttle sensor problem in qualifying where I couldn t go flat out. The car cut out five times on my flying laps. Monaco was my fault I pushed too hard in free practice and I hit the wall. I hold up my hands for that. When you start to look for those last tenths, that s when mistakes start to happen. Everybody makes them. Other teams made them, other drivers made them. I m proud of what we achieved and how close we got to the top teams by the end of the season. Aguri lost its headline sponsor at the end of the first season, with consequences for the team s pockets and drivers. The first contract was long term-ish, never a one year thing, says Felix da Costa. It was a two or three year plan. Then the team suffered a change and it was not possible to keep our work. First years suffer big challenges and people need to adapt. A new investor has since come on board at Aguri and Felix da Costa is still hopeful of gaining a place (although he has not been signed at the time of writing). I really, really want a seat, he says. I am back in talks with that team. The Aguri chiefs made the decision early to stick with the season one powertrain rather than buying a package from one of the sport s new constructors. Felix da Costa is cautious when assessing how that may affect the team s chances in The team said if we couldn t do a proper new thing for season two, we ll stick with what we know, he explains. At the end, in testing, the difference was only around 1.5s on a fast lap. I m sure the team will be able to score points. Earlier in the summer, the driver had looked set for a seat with one of the sport s new constructor teams, replacing one of the team s existing drivers. The incumbent proved reluctant to vacate the position, however, with the weight of his contract on his side. I have a race suit and they have my seat, admits Felix da Costa. There s politics and lawyers involved. At the moment I am a spectator. While DTM clashes proved troublesome to Felix da Costa s Formula E campaign in the first season, he s convinced that season two could be a different kettle of fish. I understand teams want a driver who s fully involved, he says. At the same time, the teams need to understand that I m 24 years old and I m lucky enough to have a contract with a manufacturer like BMW and I can t just let that all go. I give 200% in every car and away from the track too. It s in between races where you make up lap time sitting with the engineers, working out where you can find more time. I can still give all of that. Formula E has a very strong grid but there are a few older drivers whom, it could argued, have had their day in the sun. Should the sport be doing more to encourage teams to give drivers like Felix da Costa time in the hotseat? Whatever the answer may be, Felix da Costa is one of an elite club of just seven Formula E race winners and has years of racing ahead of him. My life has been a rollercoaster ride for the last three years almost getting into Formula 1, missing it but getting into DTM two weeks later and then racing in Formula E, he says. I m a racing driver. As long as I have a seat, four tyres and a track, I m ready to race. SEASON STARTS: 8 Wins: 1 04/Buenos Aires POLES:0 Podiums: 1 04/Buenos Aires Fastest Laps:0 Total Points: 51 Championship Position. P8 From top: a surprise victory in Buenos Aires; on debut in Malaysia; winner s champagne; racing the late Justin Wilson in Moscow; on the way to victory in Argentina. 62 / October 15 current-e.com / 63

33 Transformers Eight new constructors pitched up for collective preseason testing in August Here s all you need to know from Donington Park. Art in motion When it comes to motor racing, we believe the human stories are just as important as what happens on track. That s why our photographers are experts in capturing compelling portrait shots as well as the most extraordinary race imagery. We ve covered many categories, including Formula E, Le Mans, F1, Blancpain and WRC, shooting for teams, drivers and sponsors. Contact us today for a quote. 64 / October 15 current-e.com / 65

34 Team What s new DONINGTON Park TESTING 2015 DRIVERS MGU Transmission Testing summary Fastest lap Total laps completed DRIVERS Team MGU Transmission Testing summary ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport Lucas di Grassi / Daniel Abt Single unit / Schaeffler Three gears / Hewland Noisy and fast (everything critics would say an electric car isn t), the ABT car performed strongly through testing with minimal glitches. A real title contender. Mahindra Racing Single radial unit / McLaren Four gears / Hewland The team has put a lot of work into the black arts of software and suspension, and has redesigned the motor internals. The drivers are targeting top five finishes at every race which doesn t seem farfetched. NextEV TCR Twin axial units Single gear / Hewland A very different configuration to S1, requiring an exoskeleton to mount the powertrain within the chassis. Testing gremlins prevented hero times but appear to have been banished. Dragon Racing Single radial unit / McLaren Four gears / Hewland A new bright red chrome-effect livery shows a sign of intent from the team that finished second in the teams championship in S1. Dragon is the sport s first customer team, purchasing its solution from Venturi. Renault e.dams Single unit / Renault Two gears / SADEV Growly and quick, although outright lap times were slower than ABT. Hard to bet against with the might of Renault Sport in the driving seat, however. Trulli Single unit / Motomatica Four gears / Hewland Troubled times. The team didn t get any track testing done before collective sessions and it showed. Issues appeared to be similar to Andretti s. Nevertheless, the Italian squad is persevering with its home-grown tech in the spirit of the sport. DS Virgin Racing Twin unit (TBC) Single gear (tbc) In our opinion, the best sounding car of the lot. The drivers seemed impressed with input from Citroen DS; outright pace appears to match that of Renault. Amlin Andretti Single radial unit / McLaren Five gears / Hewland Poor Andretti. With no track testing prior to Donington, integration issues caused headaches for five days before the team admitted defeat and reverted to S1 tech on the last day of testing. Still, Andretti drivers proved potent in All is not lost. Venturi Single radial unit / McLaren Four gears / Hewland A very similar powertrain to S1 with a resulting smooth testing period. A staggering number of laps completed plus a decent turn of speed bodes well for the team that was dogged by bad luck in Bruno Senna / Nick Heidfeld Nelson Piquet / Oliver Turvey Jerome D Ambrosio / Loic Duval Sebastien Buemi / Nico Prost Tonio Liuzzi / Salvador Duran Sam Bird / Jean-Eric Vergne Simona de Silvestro / Robin frijns Stephane Sarrazin / Jacques Villeneuve Team Aguri TBC/TBC Single radial unit /McLaren Five gears / Hewland Aguri is playing the long game, waiting until battery tech is freed up. The team is gambling that the new powertrains won t run away on Formula E street circuits. The early evidence appears to indicate otherwise although anything can happen in racing Power Race mode is up from 150kW to 170kW; quali remains at 200kW Fanboost 180kW in S1, drivers may now use between 180kW and 200kW. No time limit and an additional 100kJ of energy Full course yellow When activated, a 50kph (30mph) speed limit is introduced across the whole circuit Driver changes Two per car per season permitted (three drivers in total per car), with no changes allowed in the final three rounds MOTOR MAGIC Season two regulations permit the use of two motor generator units (MGUs) within a powertrain, although they are not allowed to drive the rear wheels independently. No torque vectoring, then. There are two types of MGU in use on the S2 Formula E grid: radial and axial. Radial motors are like those used in season one (above); axial motors look more like pancakes (below). In addition to the MGUs, season two constructors are permitted to bring their own transmission, rear suspension and inverters. Batteries remain supplied by Williams. Fastest lap N/A Total laps completed / October 15 current-e.com / 67

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