The ex-F1 racer turned Venturi team boss adapting to a Formula E title fight

In Formula E’s very first race, Venturi had stamped its place into the all-electric championship’s folklore - albeit not entirely in auspicious terms. On that day in Beijing, where Nick Heidfeld was challenging e.dams’ Nicolas Prost for victory on the final lap, the Frenchman cut across his then World Endurance Championship team-mate into the last corner. Heidfeld was pitched into a flip, and Venturi was denied the chance to become Formula E’s first winning team.

The Monegasque squad has been ever-present in Formula E since, and in that time, much has changed. Opting to become a powertrain manufacturer and supplier as the formula was opened up from the full single-spec arrangement after the first season, Venturi then became a Mercedes customer ahead of Formula E’s sixth season in 2019-20. Thus began its most successful period in the championship, paving the way to a Maserati tie-up that will herald a return to being a manufacturer entity.

It’s been a huge turnaround at the team, going from fighting in the lower reaches of the points to become a looming force in the battle for the title. Edoardo Mortara, who has been with the team since 2017, was just seven points away from eventual champion Nyck de Vries in last year’s fight for supremacy. He now sits 11 points behind de Vries' Mercedes team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne with four races to go in this year’s chase.

Although easy to draw the conclusion that Venturi’s metamorphosis into a serious contender simply coincides with its Mercedes powertrain deal, there’s more than meets the eye. Former team principal Susie Wolff was a key figure in pulling the Mercedes deal together, laying the foundations for future success – and Mortara’s 2020-21 title challenge - before moving upstairs to become the team’s CEO.

Former Dragon and Mahindra driver Jerome d’Ambrosio, who had called his racing career quits to become Wolff’s deputy, was promoted in her place. Under his guidance, Venturi continues to flourish – arguably more this year, with the team still a front-runner under a more settled qualifying format reducing the entropic nature of the Formula E field.

It’s been a not-insignificant career change for the 36-year-old, who started 20 grands prix for the Virgin and Lotus teams between 2011 and 2012, but one that he’s taken to like a duck to water. Picking up from where Wolff had the team on the ground, d’Ambrosio says that the team’s continued strong form has been a strong work ethic within. Amid the team’s championship fight, where it has the manufacturing might of the works Mercedes squad, DS Techeetah and Jaguar to battle against, the bespectacled Belgian is well aware of fighting against complacency, particularly in Formula E.

After chiding Autosport for drinking an espresso at 5pm, prepared by Venturi comms extraordinaire Liz Brooks, d’Ambrosio reclines slightly on the sofa behind the team's garage at New York’s Brooklyn Street Circuit to give his assessment of his first few months in charge.

D'Ambrosio called time on his driving career at the conclusion of his 2019-20 Formula E season with Mahindra

Photo by: Dan Bathie / Motorsport Images

“It's going well because of all the ways we've improved our processes, and the way we manage to make small gains in every area compared to last season,” he says. “Those small marginal gains are paying off. It’s nothing drastic, but it’s in the small improvements and the will to continue to seek for more performance.

“Does that mean that we're going to win? Maybe not. But it does mean that we clearly have been able to put ourselves in at the front. That's where we want to be, but Formula E is very complex and what's true one weekend might not be true the following weekend. You have to stay very humble as well. I think in that, saying that we've elevated ourselves to be able to be a contender, yes. But with humility, because Formula E can come and bite you quite quickly. So we're very happy with this.”

As this is d’Ambrosio’s first season in the role as team principal, he’s reticent to take credit for Venturi’s upward mobility, giving Wolff the credit for ringing the changes when she came on board to ensure the team could evolve. In fact, when considering all of the team principals that he’s ever worked with in his past life as a driver (he’s keen to stress ‘ex-driver’, such is his dedication to his new role), he notes that working with Wolff has shaped the way that he leads the team – and paid tribute to the team that it has made the move to becoming team principal less of a leap.

"The role model that I have and that I think I personally learned the most from, because she's the one that I go on a daily basis to discuss things, is Susie. There's no way I would have been able to do what I do if I wouldn't have been surrounded properly" Jerome d'Ambrosio

As an ex-driver who won three E-Prix in his six seasons with the Dragon and Mahindra teams, d’Ambrosio feels that his time in the cockpit has granted him access to the unique well of knowledge from both inside the car and outside. He says that, when the moment comes, he can draw on his past experiences in F1 and Formula E to empathise with a driver when a key decision must be made – even if it’s a particularly tough call.

"You learn that everyone's different,” d’Ambrosio says, in reflecting in his first few months in charge. “In my new role, I can definitely picture myself back, and there might have been moments where I would have wished a team principal maybe managed situations differently with in regards to me directly or to other things. There are situations that I now look in hindsight, I completely understand why some did certain things that they had to do.

“But the overall learning from that is I really have a feeling for and it's easier for me to understand both sides. I can get the feeling of a driver and when we need to make a call that's important for the team and that might be perceived in a certain way for a driver, I can understand that. And I have empathy towards that.

“And I think it's important equally, when I see in certain situations that something might be very important for a driver and might give a lot of performance, and might not be something that necessarily is purely technical or can be explained by data, I can still see why we might gain performance.

D'Ambrosio learned the ropes working under Susie Wolff before she moved upstairs to the CEO role

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

"Understanding both sides is really a benefit. And the role model that I have and that I think I personally learned the most from, because she's the one that I go on a daily basis to discuss things, is Susie. There's no way I would have been able to do what I do if I wouldn't have been surrounded properly. Two years ago, I was driving and then it was quite abrupt as a change; the first time I was alone with the team was Mexico last year, and was less than 12 months after getting out of the car.

“But because I'm you know really well surrounded with Susie and with very competent people in every area of the team, whether it's Jérémy [Colançon] as a chief engineer, whether it's Delphine [Biscaye] as team manager, Liz as head of strategic communications. We've got good people and when you have good people around you the job becomes much, much easier.”

Having one of Formula E’s strongest driver pairings has also greased the wheels for Venturi. Mortara, a Formula E rookie when he arrived in the championship’s fourth season, has become one of its leading lights. His team-mates throughout the years have certainly been no slouches; Maro Engel, Felipe Massa and Norman Nato are all excellent drivers, but the arrival of Lucas di Grassi for the start of this year has injected the star quality only a Formula E champion can.

Mortara explained to Autosport a couple of months ago that he reckoned that he’d be a good fit for Formula E when the championship was launched, particularly due to its predilection for racing on street circuits. Known in some circles as “Mr Macau”, Mortara became known for his prowess on the tight and undulating Guia Circuit – and hoped that he could translate the success of his 10 wins (including qualifying races) there into FE.

"Before Formula E was actually launched, I thought that this could be a great championship for me because of my past results,” Mortara said. “So I tried to look for some ways to get in, and it took me actually quite some time. And then when Venturi gave me the chance to do that I was extremely happy to start racing there.

"The situation with Venturi, especially at the beginning, wasn't that easy because it was a very, very small team. And now you see Venturi with a pretty competitive package. This was not really the case, like at the beginning. So we needed to fight for results and it was not easy. But we still managed to do a pretty good job I think.”

From Mortara’s point of view, the transition to Venturi becoming a customer team was not an easy one – particularly as it had to get acquainted with all of the new systems on board from Mercedes while constricted by a reduced testing schedule relative to the manufacturers. But crucially, he says that the “transitional” year in the COVID-interrupted 2019-20 gave the team everything it needed to kick on.

Venturi has gone through its learning curve as a Mercedes customer and is reaping the rewards

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

“When we moved customer status, where we were basically exploiting what was given to us, this took us quite some time,” he explained. “As a customer, you don't have a lot of testing, and things were very, very different to what we had in the past. Season six was a transition year where we had to learn quite a lot of things, and we were not really competitive. But it did help us to understand what to do. And then the results actually started to come...”

Mortara has already chalked up three wins this year, a tally matched only by Jaguar’s Mitch Evans. The softly spoken Swiss’ long-overdue first pole also arrived in the opening Berlin race – which he followed up the next day with his second. A parable about London buses is surely applicable here...

While di Grassi isn’t so much of a factor in this year’s title hunt, having had to get used to the Mercedes powertrain after racing with Audi hardware for most of his Formula E tenure, he’s still impressed d’Ambrosio. Coincidentally, d’Ambrosio replaced di Grassi as a driver at the Virgin F1 team ahead of the 2011 season – and estimates that he’s known both drivers for over 20 years, creating an “interesting dynamic” in the team that d’Ambrosio really enjoys.

"One of the most important things that I've discovered that really made me realise that I've made the right choice is I can experience the same outside of the car, through Edo’s wins or we had a double podium in Saudi with Edo and Lucas. The sensations are amazing" Jerome d'Ambrosio

“I think we've all settled really well in that,” he continues. “Obviously, the dynamics are different than what they used to be three years ago. But I really enjoy working with them as drivers. They're both great. They're both different in their approach.

“Edo's been incredible for the team. He's been part of that turnaround; he's been with the team for five years this season. He's a central element to that evolution. And it's really amazing to see because this year, he's really been competitive; in qualifying, in the race, he's been very consistent.

“And the most amazing thing to see is how he thrives in the team and the environment, in the car with his engineers, he's really at ease in that environment and able to really extract the most out of the package. You can see that he feels comfortable to give his all, and it's nice that as a team, we've been able to create an environment where he feels that way. We have 100% trust in him, and he's showing that he's definitely made a step this year in being up there regularly.

“I think Lucas has been doing a really great job as well. The challenge when you get to this level of competition in Formula E, where the championship is at now with a stable qualifying format that’s been orientated towards a more meritocratic system, we're speaking about making those duels or not for less than half a tenth. Lucas has been missing out on the duels for less than half a tenth, that’s absolutely nothing.

D'Ambrosio praises the contribution of team newcomer di Grassi in bringing expertise from Audi

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

“These small differences, where he hasn't always been able to get that extra tenth, is very easily explained by the fact that it's all new to him. He's gone six years with one team, and our systems are different, our car’s different, he needs to adapt to that. Doing that, at a stage where everything is so close to one another, I think he's been doing an amazing job at it. In races, he's been very strong. You can see by every race that goes by, he’s more at one with the car.”

And what of d’Ambrosio’s own transition to team principal-hood? Just 34 when he decided to hang up his helmet for good, one could be forgiven for thinking that he was itching to get back behind the wheel one more time, just to taste the adrenaline that keeps racers coming back for more.

Instead, he’s happy; worried that he’d feel unable to derive the same enjoyment from sitting (or standing, as fashion dictates) in the garage during a race, d’Ambrosio quickly discovered that he could enjoy the same sensations from not actually having to go out and drive.

“It was incredible as a driver,” he begins, “but one of the most important things that I've discovered that really made me realise that I've made the right choice is I can experience the same outside of the car, through Edo’s wins or we had a double podium in Saudi with Edo and Lucas. The sensations are amazing. You're still part of the sporting aspects of things. It’s different, but it's no less.

“When you when you've been an athlete for so long, I had two fears: am I going to look at the car driving and would I want to be in the car? That was answered pretty rapidly!

“I remember watching the first sector in Saudi, my first race, in shakedown and I was seeing this dust, the car moving around between the walls and I thought 'actually I'm happy now!' And the second is this: will I, in my life, still experience that adrenaline and that excitement that victory or success on track can bring me and that intensity that sport gives you? And I do, again in a different way but nothing less.”

Venturi’s focus remains on the task at hand before it links up with Maserati for next season and, as title leader Vandoorne contended that he could have “no more off-days” through the rest of the season, the same is true of Mortara and the Monegasque team behind him.

With four races remaining and the chance of two title wins still very much in Venturi’s grasp, d’Ambrosio will have the chance to experience the full gamut of emotions from within the garage. And if it results in title wins, it’ll surely be the biggest vindication of his decision to quit driving.

D'Ambrosio says he gets the same adrenaline as team principal than he enjoyed while driving

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images