New Format, A Last Dance, and 'Clean Blockchain': 2022 Formula E Stories to Watch
(copyright FIA Formula E)
Formula E regroups and goes again on January 28 and 29, when the circus pulls up at Diriyah for the latest double-header around the Saudi circuit.
There are challenges ahead for a championship that built itself upon adaptability and flexibility, but had a tough introduction to World Championship status.
That coveted FIA status brings added scrutiny. Historically, only Formula One of the FIA-run series has been able to maintain a diverse and competitive grid during a recession, and we’re widely believed to be entering a COVID-inspired slump. Will motorsport’s scrappy innovator have enough about it to be able to ride out the final season of Gen2 and transition to a new car, while simultaneously remaining strong? This is the question Jamie Reigle and his team must answer.
While decisions are made at the top, we have an intriguing season ahead from a sporting angle, with tasty driver combinations, new partnerships waiting to gel, and the arrival of the latest F1 star to try to adapt to this aggressive and frenetic form of racing. Let’s take a look at some of the aspects that might make the 2021-22 Formula E season fascinating for spectators and participants alike.
A ‘LAST DANCE’ FOR THE GEN1 GIANTS?
Former champion Lucas di Grassi, who has joined Venturi (copyright FIA Formula E)
Sebastien Buemi had a shocker of a 2020-21 season, the 2015-16 champion scoring just over a quarter of the points total of his less experienced teammate, Oliver Rowland. With Rowland moving to Mahindra, where they are offering a salary he feels is more in line with his performances of late, Buemi has a fresh chance to show that the savvy and smoothness that used to characterise him is still there.
The Swiss has not become an average driver overnight - for proof of this, look at his fine work for Toyota in WEC. In spite of this, Buemi has a job on his hands leading a Nissan edams squad out of the doldrums. Meanwhile, Nissan will be hoping that the driver of the Renault edams days remains inside Buemi, who was oddly subdued last season.
Lucas di Grassi always comes across as supremely confident, and he seems particularly chipper about the chance to drive the Mercedes-powered Venturi. The Monegasque team will have a new technical partnership in 2022-23 due to Mercedes leaving Formula E, but for this season they’ve got what was, on the evidence of last year, the strongest powertrain package in the category. Add to that Edoardo Mortara’s moments of excellence, and di Grassi’s unparalleled tactical nous, and while the works Mercedes team will take some beating, Venturi ought to run them close for wins and possibly the title.
Buemi and di Grassi were the titans of Gen1, with nobody coming close to their rivalry on track for drama and intensity. If this season is a ‘Last Dance’ for that rivalry, we should celebrate and enjoy it.
WILL DENNIS MAINTAIN HIS END-OF-SEASON FORM?
Andrett’s Jake Dennis (copyright FIA Formula E)
Jake Dennis was not a name on many people’s lists at the start of last season, when it came to predicting title contenders. There he was, though, still in with a serious chance of taking the crown going into the Berlin weekend that closed the 2020-21 campaign. The story of how Dennis adapted to Formula E so well that he put Max Günther in the shade at BMW i.Andretti is an example of hard work and commitment paying off.
This time around, Andretti no longer has BMW’s marketing or R&D muscle, but it retains the German marque’s powertrain, which Munich was obligated to provide for the final season of Gen2. With title sponsorship from Avalanche and the same technical package as last season, expect Andretti to be quick in the early rounds, as was customary in the BMW days. The tough part for the UK-based, US-owned independent will be to develop the car to keep up with frontrunning factory teams.
If given the right car, Dennis is of proven quality to challenge for wins, and maybe more.
GÜNTHER AND WEHRLEIN BOTH OUT TO PROVE THEIR CONSISTENCY
Pascal Wehrlein (copyright FIA Formula E)
Pascal Wehrlein has been an outside bet for the championship ever since he joined Formula E in 2018, but due to running out of usable energy in Mexico City 2018-19, and ludicrous technical politics at Puebla last season, the German still lacks even a race win. It’s not his fault, but a man who is prone to introspection (often mistaken as arrogance) will want to show that those who have backed him up to now are right to do so.
Porsche are in their third year in Formula E, as many as Mercedes had (including the year with HWA) before they delivered a title win, so everyone in Weissach will be right behind Wehrlein. Whether Andre Lotterer, a useful foil for Jean-Eric Vergne at DS Techteetah, is still the right driver to provide support, is under question. Lotterer occasionally puts in a fabulous qualifying or race display, but the days when he gets involved in incidents are too numerous.
Günther went into last season widely expected to challenge for the title, but was caught up in too many fracas in midfield, meaning rhythm behind the wheel was hard to find. Dennis, who seemed an unlikely Formula E driver at first, turned into a genuine championship contender at the point his German teammate was finding life hard in the middle of the pack.The result was that when Andretti decided to hire an American driver for 2021-22, Günther was the driver to make way.
Although Buemi is coming off a poor season, edams is ‘his’ team, so Günther cannot afford to feel his way back into form. A defining season potentially awaits for both Wehrlein and his compatriot.
GIOVINAZZI STARTING IN A HARD PLACE
The Dragon-Penske car (copyright FIA Formula E)
Antonio Giovinazzi was said to be surprised by Sauber’s decision to drop him from the Alfa Romeo F1 team, and yet the former Ferrari Driver Academy member never replicated his junior formula form at that level. The same could arguably be said for Stoffel Vandoorne, who has restated his credentials in Formula E. Given this, no-one can rule out Giovinazzi becoming a very good Formula E driver.
The Italian is up against it at Dragon-Penske Autosport. Brendon Hartley joined the team in 2019, fresh from a similarly chastening and political end to his F1 career, and he was given half a season to adapt to the unique demands of electric street racing before he and Dragon mutually agreed to part company. Giovinazzi, like Hartley, is a tough soul who knows how to cope when there is no arm around the shoulder, and yet he is in a team lacking in direction, having recently called off its Bosch Gen3 technical partnership.
Giovinazzi may well be in Formula E to gain experience prior to Maserati reentering motorsport with an electric challenger - if so, Dragon would do well to harness his talents while he is on board with them.
SQUARING AN ENVIRONMENTAL AGENDA WITH ‘CLEAN CRYPTO/blockchain’
Alice Powell tests the newly blockchain-sponsored Envision Racing car (copyright FIA Formula E)
It’s a tale as old as motorsport sponsorship itself: no matter how much those with political leanings might hope that the sport has a heart, in times of financial crisis, those with the money to show, put their names on the cars. In days gone by, tobacco was the provider of funding for most of the teams at the top levels of the sport. Now, with tobacco advertising banned in many territories, crypto and the blockchain is the sector with money to burn.
Both Envision Racing and Andretti enter the new season partnered with organisations which offer blockchain-based solutions to perceived problems in the world. While, in the case of Envision’s sponsor, there is talk of a “carbon-negative network”, and “the smallest possible carbon and energy footprint”, the combined global pivot to crypto is already contributing significantly to worsening climate change.
Alejandro Agag has consistently said that he is not an environmentalist, and that he did not found Formula E based on any anti-corporate sentiment, but the willingness of teams to take blockchain-based sponsorship should give pause to anyone suggesting Formula E is primarily focused on saving the planet.
IS THE LATEST QUALIFYING FORMAT AN INNOVATION TOO FAR, OR A MASTERSTROKE?
Mitch Evans, who suffered in a number of group qualifying sessions due to others’ crafty tactics (copyright FIA Formula E)
If there was a sound more ubiquitous than an electric motor at Formula E races over the previous three seasons, it was the droning of championship-leading drivers complaining about the group qualifying format being, in their eyes, unfair.
Officially or not, the group format was designed to give a chance of points and wins to every driver, and to prevent anyone dominating in ways we have seen elsewhere. As a method of spicing up the racing, it worked, as even the format’s biggest critic, Lucas di Grassi, was willing to concede.
The new format sees two groups of 11 drivers, decided by their championship positions prior to the race (last season’s points table will be used for the first session), taking part in a knockout tournament to decide the grid order. Formula E has been known since its inception for introducing innovations that were dismissed initially as gimmicks. FanBoost has undoubtedly outstayed its welcome, yet Attack Mode is now one of the most popular aspects of races.
The qualifying format, which appears to be inspired in part by Pure ETCR, will likely mollify the likes of di Grassi, Sam Bird, and Jean-Eric Vergne, who consistently used interviews as an opportunity to lobby against the previous setup. What it may also do is confuse a TV audience already flooded with information through a race day, and lead to increased stratification of the field. We’ll just have to see, and yet Formula E’s continued openness to experimentation is, in principle, to be lauded.
