The magnificent seven Brits fighting for FE bragging rights

Even accounting for social distancing measures, chances are that those wandering the Formula E paddock in 2021 will never be more than two metres away from a past finalist of the Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year Award - formerly sponsored by McLaren.

Of the 24 seats on offer for what is, arguably, the most desirable and best-paid gig for racers this side of F1, a record seven will be occupied by Brits who sought to impress the Award judges in a variety of single-seater and closed-cockpit machinery at Silverstone in years gone by.

Having since delivered on their initial promise as an up-and-comer to develop into a seasoned pro, each can realistically head into the new electric campaign with an eye on an occasional podium. For some, they should expect much more than that.

There's something else the cohort of Sam Bird, Tom Blomqvist, Jake Dennis, Alex Lynn, Oliver Rowland, Alexander Sims and Oliver Turvey have in common. All of them head into the new term looking to galvanise teams that, to varying extents, need to recover lost ground.

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Nissan e.dams incumbent Rowland, winner of the Award in 2011, and new Jaguar Racing recruit Bird - a two-time shootout finalist - should both harbour serious title designs. For Rowland, the odds have fallen in his favour. Nissan opted for a revised homologation window to delay the introduction of its new powertrain until the spring. As per the original calendar for this season, that would have meant wading through five races with the old car.

But due to the pandemic's continuing impact, which forced three of those rounds to be postponed, he and team-mate Sebastien Buemi must only make do with last year's set-up for the Saudi Arabia double-header, albeit the car has been lavished with software updates. If they keep the results respectable in Diriyah, they can welcome their new car and the performance boost it should bring for the bulk of the season.

It will allow Nissan to build on its Berlin rejuvenation of last season. When the team agreed to a ban of its 2018-19 twin-motor powertrain concept in the interests of cost control, Nissan entered last season on the back foot, having needed to change tack completely. But it used the mid-season COVID hiatus to great effect to close the development gap and came out all guns blazing in the German capital, with Rowland winning the penultimate race.

Assured that the car is now back on the money, Rowland can make good use of his rediscovered one-lap confidence after a heavy shunt in Santiago qualifying early last year meant he left too much on the table in subsequent sessions.

"My approach in Santiago was obviously too aggressive and it wouldn't have lasted throughout the season like that," he says. "I needed that lesson. I missed superpole by three or four hundredths many times last year, which would have made a big difference to my championship position [fifth].

Bird, courted by Jaguar back in 2016, departed his effective second home at Virgin Racing, and now partners Evans to create one of the finest driver pairings on the grid

"If I can just improve a tiny bit in that area and be in superpole then I can consistently challenge for race wins. That's what [champion Antonio Felix] da Costa did, hence why he was so dominant in the end."

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Bird - who incidentally, while in GP2, coached Rowland as he won the 2015 Formula Renault 3.5 title, and recognises his former mentee's "raw outright pace" - moves to Jaguar as it recovers from a Berlin slump. Only DS Techeetah, which sewed up a second teams' crown last term, was demonstrably quicker in the early part of last season. But a ponderous showing in the six German races and an overreliance on lead driver Mitch Evans to do the heavy points lifting knocked the team from third to seventh in the final table.

The team, directed by James Barclay, was already on the phone to reignite a past interest. Bird, courted by Jaguar back in 2016, departed his effective second home at Virgin Racing, and now partners Evans to create one of the finest driver pairings on the grid.

For Bird, he catches the windfall of the squad's F1-specification simulator from Williams and the benefits of the extra testing allotted to manufacturers, as opposed to the previous two years, when Virgin Racing operated customer kit borrowed from Audi.

As the only driver to have won in each of the six seasons of FE to date, achieving a championship best of third in 2017-18, he will hope Jaguar has found its Berlin fix so that he can truly challenge for the overall crown, having slipped to ninth and then 10th in the campaigns that followed.

BMW Andretti didn't take kindly to the races on its home soil either, which massively stymied its championship aspirations as drivers Sims and Maximilian Guenther failed to score points at nine of the 12 opportunities. Second in the table soon turned to a lacklustre fifth. The manufacturer then followed Audi in announcing its intention to quit FE at the end of the season. That gives new signing Dennis, who replaces Sims at the Bavarian squad, a defined timeframe in which to put himself in the shop window.

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"I want to continue my career in Formula E, for sure," says Dennis. "I need to try and do the best job I can... I need to focus for this year and by the time the season is finished, hopefully I've done good enough to continue in Formula E."

That ambition to remain in FE puts Dennis only half a step behind his compatriots Lynn and Blomqvist. Both have been on the periphery, contesting part campaigns - Lynn for Jaguar, Virgin and Mahindra Racing; Blomqvist for Andretti and Jaguar. Now they're dead set on sticking around for the long haul.

Lynn does so at Mahindra, having been drafted in for Berlin - one of many driver changes for the 'mini-series' - to replace Pascal Wehrlein, whose position became untenable in the eyes of team principal Dilbagh Gill after the German signed a deal with Porsche for this season. Bird, who also coached Lynn, rates him as the kind of guy who "if you put him on pole, he'll win you the race". That paves the way for an impressive year to come, given Lynn showed fierce one-lap pace in Berlin, achieving three superpole appearances.

"That was my second time coming in as a sub and I definitely felt ready," says Lynn, who has ended his involvement as a factory Aston Martin GT driver to concentrate on FE. "It feels really nice to come back and finally have a full-season ride and a proper pre-season."

Team-mate Sims admits that his impeccable timing to leave BMW and replace the retiring Jerome D'Ambrosio at Mahindra, which is committed to FE until 2025 at the earliest, was accidental, and his joining Lynn means this is a refreshed attack for the Indian squad.

Its start to last season was plagued by unreliability that stemmed from a change of transmission supplier, which led to gearbox specialist ZF now taking on the overall design of the powertrain. It looks to bounce back from a first podium-free term since the very first FE season in 2014-15.

That leaves Turvey and Anglo-Swede Blomqvist, who fought off Daniel Abt and Tom Dillmann to bag the seat, to front the protracted NIO 333 recovery. The two softly spoken racers face the biggest task of the British contingent to find their way onto the podium, with NIO 333 having been the rank backmarker of the past two years. But a stellar engineering line-up and less bureaucracy to navigate thanks to new Chinese owners means this squad has its ducks in a row.

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"A lot of effort has been put in to develop this new powertrain for the next two-year cycle. A lot of the focus last year even was put towards this. I hope we can be fighting in the midfield more consistently" Oliver Turvey

If the 2019-20 campaign was about consolidation, the inbound season should mark the occasion when the team closes the gap to the midfield and surpasses the Dragon Penske Autosport concern, which appears far less organised despite being awash with backroom talent.

"It's been quite a tough two seasons with the way the team changed a lot last year," says Turvey, who has been at the squad since 2015. "A lot of effort has been put in to develop this new powertrain for the next two-year cycle. A lot of the focus last year even was put towards this. I hope we can be fighting in the midfield more consistently."

Blomqvist, taking a break from a full day in the simulator, adds: "It's all about building up and having a good, strong development and making the most of what we've got. Everyone's super-determined to prove that we've made this step. It's been a tough few years for the guys and everyone wants to get back to where they deserve to be."

Delivering a championship challenge and fighting for race wins, an FE rookie battling to make his mark, and all seven shouldering the responsibility of guiding their teams back up the pecking order. There's a lot of pressure riding on the British FE class of 2021. But as Award head judge Derek Warwick reckons, anyone who makes his shortlist is up to the task.

"To have seven British drivers in any formula is special, but to have seven Award finalists is extra special for me," says the 1992 Le Mans 24 Hours victor. "They can handle anything motorsport throws at them. These guys are at the level to compete at the
very top in whatever formula and whatever situation you put them in. When these drivers come through, it gives you such a buzz because you know just how good they are."