How F1's best team plans to conquer Formula E

The one word that sums up Mercedes' time in Formula 1 since it returned to single-seater motorsport as a works entry in 2010 is 'domination'.

True, it did take a few years for the team to return to winning ways in the grand prix sphere but, since 2014 and the introduction of the V6-turbo-hybrid power units, it has simply been all-conquering. Five world title doubles will surely become six by the end of 2019.

The cornerstone of that success is the march that Mercedes stole on its F1 rivals when it came to developing a hybrid engine ahead of 2014. Even if Ferrari has now overhauled it in the power stakes, Mercedes has arguably developed the best aerodynamics package on the current grid. Different domination.

This success is important when considering Mercedes' new adventure: into the electric future of the ABB FIA Formula E Championship. Mercedes will make its debut in the category in the upcoming 2019-20 campaign, taking over the entry granted to its HWA affiliate last season. If it seems like this has been coming for a while, that's because it has.

Mercedes first announced it had secured a berth on the 2018-19 grid back in late '16. But the following summer it revealed its intention to join the fray as a works operation one year later, with its assigned slot then going to HWA as the manufacturer opted to let the DTM dominator spend a year learning the ropes on its behalf. At the same time in 2017, Mercedes' DTM exit was confirmed for the end of '18.

But Mercedes' first roots in the electric movement currently sweeping motorsport - a reflection of the road-car overreach most manufacturer teams ultimately serve - can actually be traced back to F1's decision to introduce a hybrid element, KERS, for 2009.

Development started on the technology that would be raced by McLaren in 2009 two years earlier, and Mercedes' High Performance Powertrains division at Brixworth has continued that journey through Lewis Hamilton's first KERS-assisted win in F1 at the '09 Hungarian Grand Prix, into the new engine formula for 2014 and all the dominant success that followed.

"It does go all the way back to Mercedes deciding it would do its own KERS system when the regulations came out in 2007," says HPP managing director Andy Cowell.

"That's the point where serious electric propulsion in Mercedes' motorsport arsenal started. And the decision was taken to put that investment in Brixworth on motors, inverters, electronics and software to control it, as well as state-of-creation magnets, rotor dynamics - that whole sort of technology stream to make an efficient, useful, smart electric-drive system."

HPP is a vital part of Mercedes' new FE operation - after all, that is where the powertrain for its Silver Arrow 01 car has been produced.

HPP has a dedicated team of engineers working on the Mercedes FE powertrain

But it's just one part of a complex structure the manufacturer is using to tackle its new challenge. Just down the A43 from Brixworth, the team - led by former head of programme management at HPP Ian James, who as managing director of Mercedes-Benz Formula E Ltd will be the race team principal - will be based at Brackley, home of Mercedes' all-conquering F1 squad, which will also provide input for the FE operation.

Then there's a marketing effort at Mercedes' overall headquarters in Stuttgart and HWA's facility in Affalterbach where the cars will be assembled, with HWA running operations at race events.

"It's a complex thing we've got in place, but I still strongly believe that the right ingredients are there," says James, who will report to Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff. Wolff, in turn, estimates he will spend at least "10%" of his time focused on FE as the CEO of Mercedes-Benz Formula E Ltd.

"It's then [the team's] job to find the right recipe, and that's what we're doing at the moment - bringing all of those parts together and making sure that they function in an efficient manner," adds James, pictured below.

"We've approached that side of things very much as a start-up - we genuinely had a blank sheet of paper - and we've been able to have a look at how we best structure that [business]."

The ultimate fruit of that structure - the Silver Arrow 01 cars - will be driven by a pair of ex-McLaren F1 juniors: Stoffel Vandoorne (who raced in F1 for McLaren during the team's disastrous Honda stint between 2016 and '18) and Nyck de Vries, the current Formula 2 points leader.

The might of a manufacturer means many resources - something the Mercedes F1 team has made major use of to achieve its dominant position. The FE arm - which James is keen to stress is not "an electric copy" - will deploy a similar approach.

This means HPP has a dedicated team of engineers working on the FE powertrain. This is led by chief engineer Pierre Godof and includes many of those charged with creating the ERS systems that boosted Mercedes' V6-hybrid F1 engines to such dominant heights.

There's a clear transfer of technology between the two projects; on some of the design features, Cowell states that "with the assembly drawings I'd be able to say, 'Look at that design feature we've developed here for helping support the rotor and helping look after rotor dynamics, that's the same in the FE rotor'".

Take the MGU-K used in Mercedes' F1 engine. That has a maximum power of 120kW, whereas the maximum power produced by the equivalent part in an FE powertrain - the motor - is 250kW.

But they are both produced by the same engineering tools at Brixworth, with other parts for both powertrains coming from essentially the same family. James explains that the two motorsport divisions at HPP are "ring-fenced" and completely separately run to be "quite disciplined in our approach, and things have been structured to make sure we're protected".

But that doesn't mean tech developed by the FE engineers couldn't be fed the other way eventually and end up in a future F1 engine, thanks to the close links between departments.

At the same time as making use of the clear benefits in technology development at HPP, Mercedes' FE squad can call on some of the resources at the F1 team's Brackley base. This doesn't necessarily mean tangible assets, but there has been a clear approach of learning from the way in which the most dominant team in grand prix racing goes about its business.

"I spent the past 12 months based in Germany because it was important to build the relationships up there," explains James, who started out as a manufacturing engineer at McLaren Automotive working on the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, before joining Daimler in 2005. He later worked as head of programme management at HPP between '11 and '15, and was a senior manager (for marketing, communications and governmental business) producing the G-Class SUV before being hired to run Mercedes' FE team.

"If we surprise ourselves and we are able to score highlights - being in the top five, going onto the podium - I would be delighted. But it's not something we expect in season one" Toto Wolff

"Since the end of July I've moved back to the UK and will be based in Brackley - albeit in a separate building from the F1 side," he continues.

"But that's given me an opportunity to go in and take a look at what they do and how they work. Aside from the engineering and how things are done, it's the approach that's taken, that spirit I suppose, that's within the team - and if we can take what fits to an FE perspective from that, then we've got a great starting point.

"The work that Toto and everybody else there has done to engender the spirit and approach is immensely powerful and I think we can benefit from that as well. Having said that, we will have our own unique DNA."

It's important to remember that Mercedes does have some previous FE experience to draw upon thanks to HWA racing as a Venturi customer squad. It was an up and down season - but that was arguably exactly what Mercedes needed, getting the hard lessons learned under a different banner.

For example, during the opening four-race pointless streak endured by HWA as it battled a string of reliability issues and crashes - the worst of which was probably Vandoorne and his 2018-19 team-mate Gary Paffett colliding at the first corner of the race in Marrakech - Paffett earned a penalty for briefly switching into the 225kW power setting when not in attack mode. The set-up on his steering wheel meant it was possible to activate higher power while trying to find a different setting that would better manage battery temperature.

So, for the next race, a new switch - from which it was impossible to accidentally put the car into a different power mode - was fitted, and you can bet that approach has been taken with the steering wheel on the Silver Arrow 01.

HWA took until the fifth race of the 2018-19 campaign to score its first point, but it reached some notable highs, including Vandoorne claiming pole in Hong Kong and then taking the team's sole podium after an impressive run to third in Rome. The signs that he could do well in FE were there early on when he qualified fourth for his debut race, just three weeks after his F1 exit.

"I adapted pretty well to the car immediately," says Vandoorne. "But I was very lost in the race at first [he finished 16th in the Ad Diriyah season opener] because it's just a very different concept to go with. And it required a little bit of time to adapt to - I had a couple of mistakes in the beginning, a couple of crashes, and the team made a couple of mistakes.

"But I guess we were in that process together and we always knew that was going to be the case. We had a very steady learning curve and towards the end of the season we got much more structured, much more consistent in what we were doing as well."

Wolff describes the HWA experience as "a learning year" with "not all the resource that is needed to make it successful". This means he sees 2019-20 "as an entry point for Mercedes, and we don't take it for granted to play a role in the leading pack. That will come over time.

"If we surprise ourselves and we are able to score highlights - being in the top five, going onto the podium - I would be delighted. But it's not something we expect in season one."

There's a reason why Wolff wants his FE squad to stay with "both feet on the ground and humble". It's because he and the team know exactly how challenging FE can be. Last season, nine drivers from eight squads won races, and three different operations have won the FE teams' championship in its first five campaigns.

Renault e.dams' three consecutive titles in the opening three seasons is about as close as any one team has come to achieving dominance in the electric championship, but that run only produced one drivers' title for Sebastien Buemi in 2015-16, with Nelson Piquet Jr and Lucas di Grassi claiming the crowns on either side.

Jean-Eric Vergne has taken the two most recent titles, but was given an easier run at his first by Audi's reliability nightmare at the start of 2017-18, and only his superb performances during the title run-in during the last campaign moved him clear of a host of other contenders. Success is hard to come by in FE.

Vandoorne has seen how quickly things can go wrong in FE, and how much contact there can be on track

One of the main reasons for that is the regulations. FE's spec-only first season, then the slowly developing technology during its second, third and fourth campaigns created a culture of close, exciting racing.

That continued for the first season of the Gen2 era, and included that almost unbelievable run of eight different drivers winning the first eight races. But in 2018-19 three new rules really played a part in consistently mixing up the pecking order.

First of all, there was the attack mode, which added a genuinely intriguing tactical element to most races in place of the mid-race car swaps of the Gen1 era. (Incidentally, it was FE's end of the car-swap era that really made the series attractive to Mercedes.) And there was the move to timed races, which added further complications.

The third, and probably more important, rule tweak that came with the start of the Gen2 era was the championship-order group-qualifying approach. Because the points leaders were sent out in the first group in the initial stage of qualifying at each event - when the track was supposedly at its worst - most races featured frontrunners starting down the grid.

Arguably, this meant it never became clear which team had the best package, with DS Techeetah ending up as double title winner, but Audi still feeling it had the edge on efficiency. Domination is difficult in FE.

"I don't think any team - regardless of who they are - will dominate," says James. "I just think it's not set up in that way and as long as things don't fundamentally change, then it just doesn't lend itself to that; it's nigh on impossible for that to happen. So, my expectation is not that we or anyone else comes in and dominates.

"The competition, and the spirit of the competition, is at the heart of Formula E and that for the fans is of enormous interest. So, I don't think it's necessary for us to dominate. And we know how much of a challenge this is going to be. We're going to be approaching it with a good dose of humility."

That humble approach is a theme with FE manufacturers - even mighty Porsche, which is also making its FE debut in 2019-20 has the tagline #startfromzero. The Mercedes drivers understand the nature of the challenge, and Vandoorne has seen how quickly things can go wrong, and how much contact there can be on track. This is a relatively rare concept in single-seaters, but is facilitated more in FE due to the robust nature of the Gen2 car.

"Obviously the car is not as fast as a Formula 1 car - that is just the reality," he says. "But the feeling you get is extremely fast in the street circuits. The racing is very different as well.

"Something I also had to adjust to a little bit in the beginning was the mindset, because in F1 or everything I've done in my junior career, if you touch someone with your front wing basically you screw your own race. So, before, touching wasn't really on the cards, while in Formula E I kind of had to relearn to have a certain level of contact, aggression, let's say, in the car."

De Vries will make his FE debut one week before he travels to the F2 season finale in Abu Dhabi, where he hopes to secure that title, or indeed collect the winner's trophy should he have already prevailed. The 24-year-old says his new job is "a great opportunity in my career and it's the right direction for me to take now".

De Vries regards FE as "a great, upcoming platform", a view that is shared by his new bosses and the overall Mercedes company, which is seeking to promote its EQ brand of electric road cars with on-track success. At the same time, Mercedes appreciates that FE's city-based races offer the chance to reach a new, usually younger audience.

But it's not all fun and games in FE - there's a huge competitive streak running throughout the grid. And this means politics. After all, developing technology offers many more opportunities for arguments over innovations that could steal a competitive edge.

FE had its first massive rules bust-up last season over Nissan's now-banned twin-motor powertrain, which led to increased scrutiny on the topic of cost control. Mercedes kept a watching brief on that saga, and has been involved in the early discussions over the new technology coming for the Gen3 car, scheduled for 2022-23.

"I'm under no illusion that it will take some time to be at the front in Formula E - it will take some time but we'll eventually get there" Toto Wolff

For Wolff, an active and influential figure in F1 politics, FE's way of operating its rules, to encourage close racing, is something the series should be proud of.

"It shows that they have learned the lesson of what is dysfunctional in other race series that have had a long history but have obviously grown around complicated governance," he says. "We are a little bit of a victim of that in Formula 1, and we know that."

FE's rules may be designed to prevent domination, but there's no doubt that if Mercedes could reach heights similar to those it's reached in F1, then it would be very satisfied. Wolff feels there are clear similarities to the circumstances that led to Mercedes' current position as F1 conqueror.

"[First] you have to build the foundations and you also have to manage your own expectations and the ones from everybody outside," he explains. "It needed three years, 2010, '11 and '12, when it was really bad, until in '13 we started to play a role in the front and we finished second in the championship, and fifth year to conquer.

"I'm under no illusion that it will take some time to be at the front in Formula E - it will take some time but we'll eventually get there."

All that is not to say Mercedes will dominate Formula E in the same way it has Formula 1. But, given the pedigree of its new team, it has every chance.

Plus, consider the rules being tabled in F1 for 2021 in the name of cost control. Should that mean that Mercedes has to downsize its F1 operation, then some extremely able and successful people will need new roles, and they wouldn't have to direct their gaze very far...