Why Formula E's new car is more than just a vanity project

Nothing else in motorsport looks like a current Formula E car. When the Gen2 machine was unveiled in 2018 - complete with an enormous diffuser, covered front wheels and an X-wing at the rear - it gave the championship an appearance as standout as its electric-only running gear. It wasn't trying to ape Formula 1 or any other series.

Two years on, FE has revealed a mid-life facelift that will land for the 2020-21 season. Curiously, the Gen2 EVO bodykit now employs design characteristics borrowed from across the single-seater map. There's a move to a more conventional front wing design, the introduction of a Super Formula-like shark-fin on the rear deck, and the front arches have now been ditched in favour of a more traditional open-wheel appearance.

But this doesn't point to FE changing tack amid some sort of identity crisis.

The championship is now unashamedly built around manufacturers. That's worked, with Mercedes and Porsche joining the grid this season alongside fellow automotive biggies Audi, BMW, DS, Jaguar, Mahindra and Nissan. As the road-car industry faces an unprecedented shift amid a climate emergency, FE is the ideal place for brands to promote and develop their inevitable slide towards electrification.

As such, it's never been in anyone's interests to waste resources on aerodynamic development. FE has, since day dot, kept that aspect a closed shop. It's been up to the championship, the FIA and car builder Spark Racing Technologies to dictate the styling - not the teams.

From season two onwards, the manufacturers have developed the efficiency of their powertrains, which nestle in an exterior concept that is basically the same. For those that bemoan a lack of design differentiation in F1 - 'all the cars look the same', so the criticism goes - the problem is only worse for a single-chassis series (even more so when many of the FE liveries use the same colour pallet).

On the surface, it looks as though little is changing when that isn't the case. So what the new standardised Gen2 EVO bodykit helps to do then is, perversely, promote the technology underneath by dressing it in a new frock.

"The big picture is a half-cycle refresh, but not just for the sake of it," says Envision Virgin Racing's managing director Sylvain Filippi. "It gives the car some new, fresh momentum to reflect the technical advancements.

"If you take a step back, the regulations and rules in Formula E are great because we [teams] don't spend money and we don't focus energy and resource on chassis dynamics, which means bodywork. They are not relevant to the road car industry. We want to focus our energy, our time and resource on the powertrain.

"The downside to it of course is that then the cars all [look] the same. It's almost a shame if you do get a full four-year cycle [of the Gen2 machine]. The car would look the same externally for four years, if you didn't do the refresh, when under the engine cover so much is changing and we are coming up with so many amazing improvements year on year.

"This kind of half-cycle refresh is a good way to somehow remind people that we're not doing nothing. We are improving the car.

"If you're in F1, for example, people can see visually that you're improving the car because it looks different. Formula E doesn't."

It would be wrong, however, to think FE has fiddled with the car's appearance as a favour to its manufacturers. It has looked to address the problems that the 'original' Gen2 machine introduced.

The first-generation car was seen as too weak. It used to shed bodywork after minor contact, which in turn ruined a driver's race when they were forced to pit. The inverse was true with Gen2, where the more robust design resulted in heavy-handed manoeuvres. Drivers can nose into the car ahead but parts don't break and performance isn't lost. The incentive to wait for an opportunity to make a clean pass is diminished. It's hoped that, particularly around the new nose, the Gen2 EVO car can find a middle ground.

"Without a rear wing, having a shark fin probably does help from a marketing perspective. At the moment, from the side view it's pretty much just the sidepod and the edge of the front wing" Alexander Sims

Filippi adds: "What you are trying to achieve is this fine line. Formula E is two things: it's a technical showcase, but also it has to have spectacular racing. A lot of motorsport series are the other way where there's no contact at all and it's very boring. There's no overtaking and it's just not fun.

"We are hoping that this new bodywork maybe makes the drivers a little bit more careful on contact. But we don't want to take the hard racing away at all. Of course not. It's part of our DNA and part of street racing in general. We definitely don't want to become a contactless sport. That doesn't seem to be realistic anyway."

BMW Andretti driver Alexander Sims takes it a step further, saying that the new design should not only force drivers to self-police through an in-built weakness, but also improve visibility from the cockpit.

"I can imagine that the front wheels will be slightly more exposed, which might help us try and get over this slightly bold racing that we have at the moment," he says. "The structure will still be reasonably strong, but certainly the lack of the top covers will mean that you can see better.

"The top of the fairing [currently] does restrict your view quite a lot. The fact that it's been removed will be slightly nicer from a driver's perspective to see through the corner a bit more. Lots of apexes at the moment, you don't actually see them. If the apex isn't a wall and it's actually a kerb then you don't see it until you're there. That's my excuse for missing them!"

The most recent race, last month's Santiago E-Prix, provided plenty of action but it was far from a purist's dream. Had it not been for critical battery temperatures, Antonio Felix da Costa might well have won on-track thanks to bashing his way past eventual victor Maximilian Guenther. Sims was also guilty of some optimistic moves. The crash-strewn race was enough for one YouTube commenter to ask "is this racing or ping pong?". Implementing weakness to the new front wing can hopefully dial that back.

Another major talking point from the race in the Chilean capital came from reigning champion Jean-Eric Vergne. After early contact with Stoffel Vandoorne's Mercedes, Vergne's left-front wheel cover dropped on the tyre. He tried to knock it off himself, held up his team-mate in the process and left a plume of smoke in his wake. Ditching the covers will go some way to eliminating this and similar incidents, the cause of which was arguably not Vergne's fault.

The introduction of a shark-fin, however, looks like a largely cosmetic change. Many consider them unsightly. But, after their reintroduction to F1 in 2017, some teams did at least utilise them to improve the experience for the viewers. A driver's initials or number was displayed on the side, making it easier to differentiate between team-mates.

FE currently employs a small fin mounted on the roll-hoop to display a driver's name, which will free the shark-fin up for sponsors. That move won't help the spectator in quite the same way, but with many big brands - and in the absence of a conventional rear wing billboard - it does provide more commercial space.

As Sims continues: "Without a rear wing, having a shark fin-type bit of bodywork probably does help from a marketing perspective. You have a bit more bodywork that's got a flat surface to put sponsor logos on. At the moment, from the side view it's pretty much just the sidepod and the edge of the front wing."

By-and-large, the reveal of the Gen2 EVO is an exercise in aesthetics - something which is totally subjective. It's up to fans to make up their own opinion on the revised look. But it's only a mid-life nip-and-tuck, so it's still instantly recognisable as that bold Gen2 FE machine that first appeared two years ago.

The upshot is that FE still looks different to any other single-seater category, meaning the series retains its design identity. Manufacturers also appear happy that the new bodywork helps reflect their effort in improving the powertrains. And, as FE marches into its first season as a full-bore world championship - which doesn't dramatically change anything, it must be said - it does so with an updated car that addresses the problems of the recent past.

That makes the Gen2 EVO much more than a vanity project.

The tech behind the new FE challenger

By Jake Boxall-Legge

From a technical standpoint, focus on the aerodynamics has never been at the forefront of Formula E's development discussions, simply because it's a single-spec category. But the new evolution of the Gen2 package seems to take the aesthetics-driven initial package and genuinely give the aero package a boost.

While FE has to be seen to be keeping its look fresh, there's no point in doing so if those changes don't benefit the car in any way. Most of the attention has been handed to the front end, removing the enclosed front wheels to break the bargeboard away from the front wing geometry.

"I don't expect a huge difference in performance. Not that the cars are going slow, we are going fast. The cars in Santiago were hitting 230km/h, which on a very short city circuit is fast" Sylvain Filippi

As was the case previously, the wing transitions into the wheel fenders, but now opts to curve back around to blend into cambered wing elements - presumably aimed at eking out a bit more front-end downforce.

It's unlike the 2016-17 overhaul of the Gen1 car, however, as it doesn't reattach to the nose at this point. The adjustable wing flap below has a greater span too, presumably aimed at trying to develop a slightly 'pointier' front end to improve driver response.

The nose's 'self-policing' qualities have been discussed previously, and the suggestion is that the ancillary components outside of the crash structure are to be made less robust, and drivers will have to pit for fresh bodywork should anything become damaged.

That's a direct swipe at the current racing seen, and FE's governance wants to encourage drivers to move away from the current, and frequently seen, paint-trading .

At the rear, there's another significant change to the wing geometry.

The X-shaped bodywork has been unceremoniously dropped for vertical fins, which bend inwards in a similar manner to those at the front. These are also cambered to produce a degree of downforce, hinting at a more conventional rear wing - albeit with a typically FE twist.

FE's aesthetes have also added a shark fin to the mix, not dissimilar to that seen on a Super Formula car, which will straighten out the airflow to the rear. Ahead of the rear wheels, the sidepods have been simplified and lose the turning vanes.

By slashing the amount of bodywork exposed to the air, FE's design team have also aimed to reduce the amount of drag, perhaps increasing the overall top speed by a couple of klicks. But as Filippi suggests, although the collective changes to the car may change performance by a small amount, it won't be a crucial factor on-track.

"Ultimately, I don't expect a huge difference in performance coming from that angle," he says. "Not that the cars are going slow, we are going fast. The cars in Santiago were hitting 230km/h, which on a very short city circuit is fast.

"But the main performance improvements we are finding are based on the powertrain improvements and suspension vehicle dynamics - so more mechanical grip. Even if there were some [aero] gains, I don't expect them to be huge in percentage terms, simply because we don't rely on them that much."