How Mercedes pulled off a silent coup in Formula E

Mercedes made a rod for its own back as the hybrid rules arrived in Formula 1. Bearing in mind the scale and sustained nature of its grand prix dominance, any subsequent factory motorsport effort – especially one underpinned by High Performance Powertrains in Brixworth – would be measured against this yardstick. Whether propelled by combustion or kilowatts, the Three-Pointed Star was expected to come up trumps. Formula E was a case in point.

Back in October 2016, when Toto Wolff announced Mercedes’ intention to join the grid, the championship had positioned itself well. Formula E had survived economic fragility and a potential team walkout in its inaugural 2014-15 campaign, when co-founder Alejandro Agag was briefly sacked by his investors. It was just about navigating a tricky third year where races were never far from cancellation.

But, above all, it had very successfully tapped into the automotive zeitgeist. Ever-tightening legislation and the emissions scandal meant OEMs were banging at the door in their bid to align with the changing times.

Daimler was among those to have its interest piqued. Marketing board member Britta Seeger led the push from Stuttgart to secure an entry, and Formula E was never going to turn Mercedes away. The programme would fall under the stewardship of Wolff, and Ola Kallenius – Merc chairman and CEO – was hands-on in lining up Ian James as team principal.

James, formerly head of programme management at HPP, explains: “The interest was there because of Formula E’s messaging, its global scale and because sustainability really was at the heart. It was a great showcase for the shift to electrification in these iconic city centres. At the time, it was very attractive.”

The first challenge for James was to create a coherent structure. The race team would predominantly be made up of talent from the HWA DTM squad based in Affalterbach. The operations would span Brackley and Stuttgart, while the technical prowess nestled in Brixworth.

Formula E bow came under the HWA Racelab banner, with testing beginning immediately after it clinched the 2018 DTM title

Photo by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images

In addition to that logistical challenge, he was tasked with making sure the Formula E team could work as a standalone business. James adds: “In the early days there was virtually no infrastructure, so it was quite a challenge. We had some great people and some great experience across the board. It just hadn’t been brought together in one team.”

Collateral damage came in the form of quitting the DTM, an end after three decades that would soon give the tin-top series an identity crisis. But that exit had to wait until the close of the 2018 season since Mercedes wanted to end its touring car tenure on a high, and backed Gary Paffett to seal his second drivers’ title for the marque. That came to fruition all while Mercedes, under the HWA Racelab banner, geared up for its battery bow.

“That really was something unique,” James says of the clash between the DTM title decider at Hockenheim and Formula E pre-season testing at Valencia. “The team won the DTM championship on Saturday night, half of them stuck around for the party, half of them jumped on a flight to Valencia. That week was hell. For the majority of the team, it was three hours’ sleep every night for the duration of the test.”

“It did start to feel like a team towards the end of the season. There were certain times where we really looked very good, but then times where we looked very bad. It was just a bit rough around the edges" Garry Paffett

Although HWA ran a customer powertrain in a deal with Venturi Racing supplier ZF, the 2018-19 campaign was still more thoroughbred than mongrel. Tony Ross had left his post as Valtteri Bottas’s race engineer, having won the 2016 F1 title on the pitwall for Nico Rosberg, to join the Formula E team. It was the still the same crack engineering squad that had sealed the DTM spoils.

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Franco Chiocchetti had been poached from Audi’s successful Formula E operation, and Stoffel Vandoorne was rescued from his misery at McLaren in F1. Paffett made the electric switch also. Despite the inherent pedigree, life in Formula E was not about to get off to a smooth start.

Paffett, now an advisor and reserve driver for Mercedes, explains: “At Valencia, it did not feel like a superteam. It really did not. Wow, it was a baptism of fire. We had a lot of great ingredients, a lot of the engineers I had worked with in DTM, and they were fantastic.

“But none of us knew anything about Formula E. We had a couple of people within HWA that had been shadowing Venturi for a season just to try and learn the championship and see how it worked. But we were all new. At times, it was a complete mess. Just trying to make the first race was difficult. We were building something that could be great, but it was very difficult.”

Paffett describes the team's first year as "a complete mess" at times

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

A critical issue was the carbon driveshaft used by ZF. It kept failing and dogged both HWA and Venturi. That was beyond the control of the teams, and meant the focus was on understanding the car set-up and adapting to the systems at the heart of the championship.

Paffett continues: “Transferrable knowledge was very limited. We all had to completely relearn what we knew from an engineering point of view and also from a driving point of view – just completely relearn how to go racing.

“Running the energy management system, that needed a lot of work that we never really understood. We were very much learning how FE works and even down to how many parts we needed. You start bashing into walls or each other and you start running out of parts.

“I remember after Marrakech when me and Stoffel had a bit of a coming together, which was the worst thing that ever could have happened for the team. We were facing the prospect of not having enough parts to get the cars to the next race [in Santiago two weeks later]. It was really that close.”

At the midpoint of the campaign, the momentum did begin to gather. Slippery conditions in Hong Kong allowed Vandoorne to top qualifying, while Paffett also progressed into the superpole dogfight. Vandoorne claimed the first podium in Rome and, while neither driver could repeat those heights, they both finished the final five races and found a degree of consistency that had been sorely lacking in the previous eight. Ninth of the 11 teams, one place behind Venturi, was the outcome in the final standings.

“It did start to feel like a team towards the end of the season,” says Paffett, who would be dropped in favour of Nyck de Vries – a decision steered by Wolff and Mercedes chief strategist James Vowles. “There were certain times where we really looked very good, but then times where we looked very bad. It was just a bit rough around the edges.

“But the pace was becoming more consistent, and we were understanding the systems a bit more. Lots of things stopped us from showing our potential. But over the off-season, a lot changed.”

First podium came courtesy of Vandoorne's third place in Rome

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

The biggest change as HWA morphed into the fully fledged factory entry for 2019-20, aside from a silver livery, was the arrival of an HPP powertrain. Led by Mercedes ERS architect Pierre Godof, it was 18 months in the making.

The customer relationship reversed, and Venturi took on the works engine to provide four cars’ worth of data rather than two. De Vries was in alongside Vandoorne and – an aspect not to be overlooked – the race team had completed its beta season and was more accustomed to life in Formula E.

"Not only are [the drivers] extremely talented and bloody quick, but they also have been instrumental in the development of the team"Ian James

James, who had attended every race in a background role while becoming acquainted with the “characters” in the paddock, says of the driver switcheroo: “One of the things that we were very conscious of was that we needed two drivers who could very much be part of the development process. We were always going to be on this steep learning curve.

“Both Stoffel and Nyck have been superb in that respect. Not only are they extremely talented and bloody quick, but they also have been instrumental in the development of the team. We’ve been fortunate enough to retain the services of Gary as well who has also been an asset.”

Preparations for 2019-20 were far less hectic as gremlins were fewer and farther between. But the squad retained a genuine anxiety as to how it would fare as the season kicked off in Saudi Arabia. To their immediate relief, Vandoorne achieved a brace of podiums in the double-header. Not only did that surpass the humble benchmark set by HWA, but it also kept series newcomer and noisy hometown neighbour Porsche at arm’s length.

De Vries proved a stellar addition to the grid, replicating the aggression and outright speed of his F1 compatriot Max Verstappen. But the electric rookie bore the brunt of Mercedes’ lingering operational errors as it continued to find its feet. He copped 29s of penalties in Saudi, lost a podium in Chile to an over-cooled battery, and crashed out in Mexico with a software glitch. A power over-spike killed his chances in Marrakech and, after a five-month COVID hiatus, a full car shutdown scuppered his early Berlin hopes.

But in scenes reminiscent of the tail end of the 2015 F1 season, when Rosberg won the final three races of the term to tee up his run to the title the following year, Mercedes fired its warning shot. For the last race of the interrupted 2019-20 season in the German capital, Vandoorne led his team-mate to a comfortable 1-2.

At the end of its first full year, Vandoorne broke his and Mercedes' duck by leading de Vries in a Berlin 1-2

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Off-track, however, there was cause to check the optimism over the winter break. Throughout the spring of 2020, the Formula E programme had been suspended while Brixworth was repurposed to help manufacture breathing aids during the first peak of the pandemic. The decision to press on and still introduce a new powertrain was not to be underestimated.

James recalls: “We looked at each other in the whites of the eyes and said, ‘What do we really want to start with?’”

The team took a “massive risk” when it answered that question, with Mercedes hastening the arrival of its Silver Arrow 02 machine and its heavily reworked evolution of the Gen2 engine. This decisive call to persevere paid dividends when de Vries dominated the opener in Saudi, Vandoorne triumphed in Rome, and de Vries completed a hat-trick from the first three rounds at Valencia.

Over-ambition crept in as Mercedes chased qualifying gains to no good effect and inspired a mid-season slump. But that didn’t keep the beast down for long, with the rewards arriving in the final race of the campaign. The squad wrapped up the teams’ crown on home soil in Berlin in August, while de Vries completed a title double.

PLUS: How Mercedes and De Vries achieved Formula E glory the hard way

Three years, three months and three weeks after work had begun on the first all-electric powertrain, HPP and Mercedes delivered on the expectation borne out of its F1 success to establish itself as the battery benchmark.

De Vries and James celebrate in Berlin after the Dutchman delivered Mercedes a title double

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images