The giant rookie doing FE its own way

One storyline is going to run through the sixth season of ABB FIA Formula E in 2019/20, the respective fates of the two new teams on the grid: Porsche and Mercedes.

Each is arriving in the electric championship after rising to the top and then dominating series elsewhere. In Mercedes' case, it is still ruling Formula 1. FE is a series that seeks to head off domination through regulation - as many do - but, judging by the success spread of its most recent seasons, it is working. Success is not guaranteed in this championship, no matter how big a budget or motorsport legacy a team possesses - just ask Jaguar.

That's what is going to make this storyline so captivating. Will FE's established squads see off the challenge from the newcomers? Or will Porsche and Mercedes do what Porsche and Mercedes do and ultimately prevail?

"I don't think Porsche or Mercedes will come and kick our asses," predicted Jean-Eric Vergne ahead of the 2018/19 season finale in New York.

But the sheer might of these two teams - and their respective recent successes in world championship motorsport - cannot be ignored. They are also set to dominate the pre-season news, with Porsche already launching its new team and Mercedes set to do likewise at the Frankfurt Motor Show on Wednesday.

There's already an interesting early subplot to this story, which was made clear at Porsche's recent team launch - hosted on livestream gaming platform Twitch over four hours at the Porsche Digital GmbH premises in Ludwigsburg.

The night before, Porsche had revealed its first FE livery and team structure to the media.

As drivers Neel Jani and Andre Lotterer pulled back the covers on the 99X Electric, they were joined by three members of Porsche's four-person team management structure.

The team will be led by Pascal Zurlinden, Porsche's director of factory motorsport, technical chief Malte Huneke, head of FE operations Amiel Lindesay, and Carlo Wiggers, director of team management and business relations for Porsche motorsport.

"We don't speak about team principals - we have our structure. It's our Porsche way" Pascal Zurlinden

This differs from the way most FE teams operate in terms of senior management. Audi, BMW Andretti and Nissan e.dams opt for a team principal combined with the motorsport boss from their respective manufacturer partners at the top of their teams, while the rest have a traditional single team principal, albeit with varying degrees of support structures.

Mercedes is set to have its FE squad's managing director Ian James as its team principal - reporting to motorsport boss Toto Wolff - but Porsche appears to have the opposite of a streamlined approach.

"At the end we decided this structure and we don't speak about team principals - we have our structure, as presented," says Zurlinden. "Just because it's a structure we also have in other programmes and this is the way we see as the most efficient way to run the programme. It's our Porsche way."

While there's no indication an enlarged team management structure could end up causing Porsche problems - the 'Porsche way' hasn't exactly worked out badly in the recent past - it should be noted that it was set to have a team principal.

Andreas Seidl, currently helping McLaren revive its F1 fortunes, had been tasked with leading Porsche's FE team in the same way he was in charge of its ultra-successful LMP1 squad.

The accompanying resources that stem from Porsche's World Endurance Championship past should not be underestimated. After all, the 99X Electric was built in the same facility that produced the 919 Hybrid that took Porsche to three Le Mans 24 Hours wins and three LMP1 title doubles.

"The resources that the manufacturers had to put in to do Le Mans back then were quite big and all that infrastructure is available now for the Formula E team, and all the engineers as well," says Lotterer.

"So the standard in work and in materials and the way they do the development is pretty high. It doesn't mean that it's going to make it faster, but all the tools are there."

The new FE season is fast approaching. All the teams will report for group pre-season testing at Valencia in the middle of October. After that comes the (extended) deadline for powertrain hardware homologation at the end of that month, then the first races in Saudi Arabia on November 22-23.

Porsche has just one private test remaining before it heads to Valencia - the final ebb of its 15-day FE manufacturer-allocated allowance. So far, the team has concentrated on reliability and proving the capabilities of its package as much as it can away from FE's usual street-circuit settings. Now, it's turning its attention to performance.

"Until now we concentrated a lot on reliability and making sure that all the car components that we developed ourselves are working," says Zurlinden - and now it's about performance and getting ready for the first race with one more test."

This highlights another way Porsche has gone about its FE entry on a different path to Mercedes. Whereas Mercedes had the benefit of a season-long learning campaign via the 2018/19 HWA entry (pictured above) using a customer Venturi package, Porsche will be doing all of its learning in the public eye.

"HWA has been an example to us of how difficult it can be for basically Mercedes" Neel Jani

This is why Porsche is keen to be "really humble", according to Zurlinden and the public utterances from the rest of the team. It's a sensible approach of underpromising in the hope of overdelivering - Mercedes is taking the same tactic - because Porsche knows just how competitive FE can be. After all, its staff made plenty of visits to the paddock over the course of last season, where nine drivers from eight teams won races.

"Formula 1 is predictable, you know which three teams are normally going to win, except when it's a race like Hockenheim [where wet weather caused chaos in 2019]," says Jani.

"Here, it's unpredictable - one race Mitch Evans was up front for Jaguar, the next race he's 19th! Not just because he drove bad or had a bad day, it's just how Formula E is.

"And that's the point, that's where we need to make sure we don't go crazy about this and maybe start changing good things.

"Still, we need to know our strong and weak points, and HWA [which finished ninth in the 2018/19 teams' championship] has been an example to us of how difficult it can be for basically Mercedes, a factory team."

Porsche is unlikely to make anything other than carefully thought out decisions during its debut FE season - which explains its humble approach to a series where it knows it might not enter and have immediate success. But past glory does bring expectation.

The team is forging its own path in FE. The first steps of that journey can now be seen in the carefully named and liveried 99X Electric - it is named in Porsche's usual fashion, with the three digits representing Porsche's racing cars and two-door road machines, while using the company's traditional motorsport colours of white, black and red, arranged so its famous badge is recreated when the car is view from above.

The next step of Porsche's path in the spotlight is proving that its unique approach will bring the speed and efficiency combination FE success demands.