The saga that questions FE's soul

Technology developments being outlawed are nothing new in motorsport. In Formula 1 alone, the list of banned developments is extensive.

Ground effect, six-wheeled cars, flexible wings, traction control, active suspension, mass dampers, and x-wings are just some of the innovations no longer permitted in grand prix racing. The cars are not even allowed to be painted differently within a single two-car team.

But then F1 is well beyond its infancy. It's had a host of manufacturers, design gurus and engineering pioneers come and go.

Things are not that advanced in many other motorsport categories, even one that has advancing technology as one of its key aims.

During the 2018/19 season, ABB FIA Formula E has had its first major bust-up over technology developed by one of its teams.

Here's how things stand now: as of the start of the 2019/20 championship, which will be FE's sixth campaign, twin-motor powertrains will be outlawed. At the recent World Motor Sport Council meeting in Paris, the FIA announced that "reducing the maximum number of MGUs (rotating electromechanical power converters) from two to one" would be the only acceptable powertrain approach FE's teams can use.

This was widely expected to impact on the Nissan e.dams squad, which paddock rumour and reports had long suggested was the only team running a twin motor system in the first season of FE's Gen2 era. Such an approach had been tried before, notably by NIO - then NEXTEV - and DS, but without much success, and the field largely converged on a single motor approach.

At the Swiss E-Prix in Bern last weekend, a week after the WMSC announcement, Nissan finally publically confirmed how its 2018/19 powertrain was configured.

"It's clear that for competitive reasons, we wanted to hold as much information [back before]," Nissan motorsport boss Michael Carcamo told Autosport. "But it's true, I believe we have one of the most innovative packages on the grid today, which uses a twin motor solution."

Here's how the current situation was reached. Last September, electric racing website e-racing365 published a story claiming Nissan would use a twin-motor powertrain in its first season as an FE manufacturer after replacing alliance partner Renault in the e.dams set-up. At the official 2018/19 pre-season Valencia test, Nissan and Carcamo flatly refused to discuss the make-up of the powertrain with the media, a stance that continued until last weekend's race in Bern.

But interest in Nissan's powertrain dipped significantly after the bombshell development of Alex Albon's potential departure for Toro Rosso and F1 before he had even made his FE debut. The driver story took precedence.

With Oliver Rowland then signed to replace Albon alongside Sebastien Buemi, Nissan's own FE debut got under way. It started third with Buemi at the season opener in Riyadh, but he faded to sixth at the finish and was downcast about his package's potential compared to its rivals.

"We had a lot of difficulties in order to have it working and reliable. Now we have reached the level of reliability with performance" Jean-Paul Driot

Things changed in Marrakech. Buemi was positively beaming post-race, despite the first corner mess confining him to eighth place, as he felt Nissan had made a major step with its powertrain efficiency and overall race pace. Santiago was even better as Buemi started on pole (after Lucas di Grassi's disqualification from qualifying), and led much of the race before he crashed out. This was a development he blamed on a software glitch and said "was not my fault", which many suspected was an insinuation to a characteristic of the twin-motor powertrain - or rather, as it was then, the suspected twin-motor powertrain.

The next race at Mexico City was a high-profile disaster for Nissan as Rowland's breakthrough performance - where both he and Buemi were in podium contention all race - was undone by their high-profile energy depletion on the final lap. This was blamed on a strategy software miscalculation. Hong Kong was also a disappointment but it was contact and suspension issues that stymied the Nissan pair.

The team was back in the performance spotlight at Sanya, however. Buemi looked a sure bet for pole before he crashed out in superpole, in near identical fashion to a practice shunt at the same corner earlier in the day. But Rowland did take pole and secured a maiden FE podium for both himself and Nissan despite Jean-Eric Vergne getting by for the win. Buemi charged from the pitlane to the points, ending up eighth after a post-race penalty for causing a collision with Robin Frijns, which also eliminated di Grassi, but the way he was able to shoot away under acceleration during his fightback was noted by rival drivers. Punchy acceleration is a clear benefit of a twin-motor powertrain.

The Nissans did not feature prominently in Rome, but it was the opposite in Paris. The team locked out the front row once Pascal Wehrlein had lost pole and was considered the heavy favourite for the win. But it never came. First, Rowland went off into the barriers while leading - he blamed himself but it was a similar incident to Buemi's offs in Santiago and at Sanya - and Buemi lost his inherited lead when contact with eventual winner Robin Frijns gave him a puncture.

Rowland took pole in Monaco, but a penalty for hitting Alexander Sims as he charged back in the Paris rain meant Vergne started on top spot, and he claimed second place after pressuring the DS Techeetah driver for much of the race. Buemi then took the team's fifth pole of the season in Berlin, where he went on to secure his first podium of the campaign in second behind di Grassi, and he backed up that breakthrough with a third place on home soil.

Just before Bern came the WMSC announcement, and with it, the spotlight was put firmly back on Nissan's powertrain.

When asked to outline the timeline of when Nissan had realised there could be a problem with its powertrain in terms of complaints from other teams, Carcamo indicated this had been there during pre-season testing last October, and said: "I don't think there's any specific time, but I think we've been aware... as soon as there was speculation of a two-motor system I think that there was discussions."

Carcamo later explained just why things had been kept under wraps, but it was team principal Jean-Paul Driot who, in typical no-nonsense style, told the pre-event Bern press conference the score for his squad when asked to assess Nissan's season so far.

"The assessment is quite special because we started with quite an innovative powertrain and it was a difficult one in order to put it all together," said Driot.

"We had a lot of difficulties in order to have it working and reliable. And so, we had performance but we had some problems, and now we have reached the level of reliability with performance.

"And we have it until the end of the season because that after we will have to go back, in a very short period of time, to one [motor] only. So, we hope that we can confirm it was a good way of doing it by winning some races at the end of the championship."

As Driot pointed out, Nissan does not have long to adapt to the FIA's decision. In short, it will have to produce a fresh powertrain design that uses a single motor, have the hardware homologated by the FIA by the end of August, and be ready to race in Saudi Arabia in November.

The 2019/20 season opener is just five months away, and the homologation deadline just over two - although extensions came be applied for. But Carcamo says Nissan has been working on a plan B, just in case it had to look at an alternative approach for the future.

"We rely on the FIA to make sure the regulations allow for a championship that can be fought equally. And from our point of view, it's the FIA's call" James Barclay

"As in any business or any team, you have multiple work streams - so there was always people looking at [a single motor]," he said. "Because we're competing with everyone else that has a one motor solution. We had to understand what they were doing, and there was always an opportunity to learn what they're doing, even if we couldn't implement it [this season].

"So now we take as much as we've learned from what's happened in this season and use that with our own information from this season to develop [for] season six."

But Carcamo also disclosed that while Nissan's 2019/20 testing programme is under way, the single motor powered package has not run on-track "in the way that we will race".

One fascinating aspect of Nissan's revelations over the Bern weekend concerns something Driot mentioned about the interest in his team's powertrain from rival squads.

"We have always followed the FIA, and we have done everything with the FIA since the beginning - including for this innovative solution," he said when asked about the challenge of preparing a new approach for 2019/20.

"We have been homologated. Apparently, people were thinking that we were a little bit too strong, so some lobbying was done, and we will follow what the FIA wants."

Regarding this, Carcamo said: "In a competitive championship that's what teams do. They try and find ways to minimise the risk, let's say, or the competitive [level] of others by ensuring that the rules or the regulations are applied in a certain way. I think that's natural - it's a natural course of motorsports."

Last weekend, Nissan's rival FE operations were clear where any questions regarding the banning of twin motors should go.

"The FIA obviously looked at something - they take into account a lot of factors," said Audi team principal Allan McNish. "They felt that the best way forward for the championship was to have a different view and clarification of the regulations regarding what parameters you can play and also the grey areas of the future of the regulations.

"Like everything, they're evolving and it's kind of treading in new water every single time.

"You find new areas of exploring but you also find new things that are not so good. That's the thing that they've got to manage. It's up to them to manage the regulations, fix them and then we have to abide by them. That's simply it."

Jaguar team boss James Barclay, who is also chairman of the Formula E Teams and Manufacturers Association (FETAMA) said: "From a team point of view and from a championship perspective, we have to put faith in the FIA to make the decisions that ultimately means that we have sporting equality and everyone is basically complying with the regulations.

"And that is absolutely the position - that we rely on them to make sure the regulations allow for a championship that can be fought equally. And from our point of view, it's the FIA's call."

The final chapter in this saga surely needs to be the FIA and FE expanding on what the championship actually is

So here's another way of describing how things now stand. The FIA, following discussions with Nissan and the other teams, has apparently banned an approach to FE powertrains in the interests of keeping the sporting contest balanced.

But there are a number of unanswered questions remaining in all of this.

Firstly, if the FIA considers Nissan's powertrain to be illegal for next season, surely leaving it free to complete the season with its current approach sends a curious message.

Nissan, at least, does have an explanation for this, with Carcamo saying: "There is nothing wrong with our system today, which is why we're racing, it's just for the other teams the way the regulations worked [about] homologation periods it would cause a different study."

But that's a minor quibble. The remaining questions are bigger.

Why has a powertrain approach that is still yet to even win a race been outlawed in the interests of competitive parity? In Berlin, Buemi explained that Nissan's package "is not efficient in the race,", while Carcamo stated in Bern that the twin motor approach means "a weight penalty" and that Nissan "takes an efficiency penalty in our solution". So just what does the governing body fear would happen if Nissan was allowed to keep its innovation?

And also, if, as Carcamo said, Nissan's twin motor approach is "one of the most innovative packages", does banning it not go against FE's ethos to stimulate and drive innovation in the electric automotive field?

It has been suggested that the current FE convergence on single-motor powertrains and the current battery technology is relatively simple compared to what is being developed for high-end electric road cars. And at the same time, Nissan's current application of the twin-motor approach is thought to be incredibly complex.

If keeping twin motors legal is thought to create the potential for a big-spending 'arms race' that would ultimately be damaging to FE, that's a sound argument. But it ought to be made clear if that's the case.

Ultimately, it cannot be both ways. FE cannot be held up as a field to advance electric vehicle technology if genuine variance and innovation are stifled by the rules.

Wanting to ensure parity between the teams is totally fine. But it should also be noted that such an approach isn't always the way in motorsport - beyond modern-day single-make junior single-seaters and the tedium of sportscar balance of performance, anyway.

So, the final chapter in this saga surely needs to be this: the FIA, which was approached for comment on the questions raised above but had not responded by the time of publication, now needs to expand on what it sees FE as being.

Is it electric vehicle tech-based entertainment? Or is it a competition that promotes the advancement of genuine innovation that will positively impact future road cars and the world we share?

Either is utterly fine, but clarity is absolutely needed.