The surprising 'winner' from Formula E testing

The biggest-ever Formula E field came together at Valencia last week for the official pre-season test of the 2019/20 season. Motorsport giants Mercedes and Porsche are now among the FE ranks, as are four fresh faces on the driver front.

While the modified National layout at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo may not be the best representation of a city-centre FE track, it still gives some early hints. Autosport crunched the numbers and picked out the big storylines from a sunny week of group running in Spain.

Before we get into the details of what we can take from both the times and the simulated races, here's a recap of how the week unfolded:

Day 1 - Tuesday

Straight off the bat, the times posted on the first morning were quicker than the best lap from 2018 - a 1m16.977s from then BMW Andretti driver Antonio Felix da Costa.

Maximilian Guenther picked up where da Costa, now at DS Techeetah, left off and put BMW on top in the first session with a 1m15.926s. In the afternoon, Envision Virgin Racing driver Sam Bird set a day's best 1m15.570s time to leap up the order - even surprising some of his own team by taking the top spot.

The reason why the times were already so much faster was the changes made to the chicane FE installs on the track's start/finish straight to form a new opening sequence of corners designed to add a more representative braking test for the cars and simulate the tight confines of city tracks.

For 2019, the chicane was fractionally more open, raising average apex speeds from 30km/h to 60km/h. While the chicane's true representation of an FE corner sequence is doubted by many drivers, it proved to be a perilous place for many over the course of the week.

"It's mainly the chicane," reigning FE champion Jean-Eric Vergne said of the immediately faster times. "The rest is more or less the same; the car is the same, the power is the same, so unless somebody has a hidden powertrain, like somebody had last year, we can't go any faster."

Mercedes and Porsche ran into early difficulties. Recently-crowned Formula 2 champion Nyck de Vries pulled over at the start of the morning's second hour when a technical issue Mercedes continued to investigate over the week caused a blown battery fuse and stopped him adding to his early total of 13 laps.

At Porsche, Neel Jani joined Jaguar's James Calado in crashing at the chicane on the opening morning after completing 30 laps, which he did not add to in the afternoon as Porsche was forced to build up a new tub.

Day 2 - Wednesday

Robin Frijns continued Virgin's fine start by setting the best time of the day towards the end of the three-hour morning session - a 1m15.377s. That time remained unbeaten in the afternoon running (all on-track sessions were three hours long), although Virgin did encounter some misfortune when Bird crashed late-on at the chicane and caused considerable damage to the right-hand side of his car.

Accidents at that spot had been a theme of the day, which also continued the low-key start to FE life for Mercedes and Porsche. First, de Vries's woes continued as he crashed his car - running again from the off on Wednesday - after just 30 minutes of the morning.

Then he was joined by Porsche driver Andre Lotterer, who followed team-mate Jani in requiring major repairs for the second day in a row.

"It was not a huge mistake but this chicane, it's a bit small, very unusual and a bit useless in terms of a place where we're testing," said Lotterer. "I understand we need one, but maybe a bit of a wider one would make more sense because you have zero room. You don't even find chicanes like that on the proper race tracks."

The crash kept Lotterer out of FE's first non-competitive race simulation, which at least gave Mercedes something to smile about - briefly - as it was 'won' at a canter by Stoffel Vandoorne.

Day 3 - Friday

After Thursday's 'rest' day had been devoted to meetings and media duties, the drivers hit the track for the final official pre-season running ahead of the season-opener in Riyadh - though several teams are understood to have outstanding private test days to complete ahead of the powertrain-hardware homologation deadline on October 31.

Right from the off, the times got quicker and quicker as most squads switched to some kind of performance running - cue more halos flashing purple, the powertrains audibly whistling with purpose, and drivers flirting with more disaster at the chicane.

Pascal Wehrlein improved the best time with a 1m15.190s in the morning running before Guenther returned BMW to its position as FE testing 'champion' with a 1m15.087s that put the manufacturer on top by 0.103s, with Nico Muller taking third for Dragon Racing, just 0.008s behind Wehrlein.

After Sebastien Buemi had taken the non-existent honours in the second, and originally unplanned, second test race, the chicane found time to claim a few more victims before the day wrapped up.

After Dragon's Brendon Hartley had caused a red flag by going off into the gravel in late in the first sector, Vandoorne hit the wall on the exit of the chicane and ripped off his front-left wheel fairing. Shortly afterwards, Muller did likewise and Guenther stopping at the same place - albeit with no visible damage - brought an end to a crunching week of testing.

Best test times by team

1 BMW Guenther 1m15.087s
2 Mahindra Wehrlein 1m15.190s
3 Dragon Muller 1m15.198s
4 DS Techeetah da Costa 1m15.293s
5 Jaguar Evans 1m15.306s
6 Nissan Buemi 1m15.328s
7 Virgin Frijns 1m15.377s
8 Venturi Massa 1m15.504s
9 Audi Abt 1m15.673s
10 Porsche Lotterer 1m15.699s
11 Mercedes Vandoorne 1m15.736s
12 NIO Turvey 1m16.568s

Valencia 'winners'

In 2018, Formula E had staged a race simulation to test its attack mode race format procedures, which were generally a success last season. For 2019, the championship - in conjunction with the FIA and the teams - put on two 'E-Prix Exercises'.

These were necessary because of several sporting rule tweaks that will come into effect for the new campaign. The rule under most scrutiny at Valencia was the set amount of energy to be deducted from each car - equal to 1kWh per minute for the duration of each caution period - after in-race interruptions.

The first race, after early leader (from pitlane pole) Wehrlein faded when he couldn't activate attack mode, became a Mercedes/Venturi dominated affair as Vandoorne and Mortara stole a march on the opposition despite several full course yellow tests and the appearance of the safety car, before the latter came in late to 'retire'.

But any suggestion of upcoming Mercedes domination may have come too early as Mortara explained that "a problem with the calculation of energy" had given the pair an advantage over the 'opposition'.

The second 'race' was added to the schedule after the media day as there had been some concerns that the energy subtraction information had not been sent to some teams in time during the first.

The last thing anyone wants is the issue detracting from a result in Riyadh, and so, with time available and Valencia being unrepresentative (again), a second race took place on Friday afternoon.

The final pieces of the puzzle will only fall into place in Riyadh, where the teams will conduct the final bits of set-up work to 'chase the track'

The Virgin drivers roared from the midfield to the front - edging clear again after a lengthy FCY pack-up - before pitting with a few minutes remaining, which suggests they were on completely different energy strategies to the rest.

Sebastien Buemi came out on top after the Nissans had put on a similar - if less spectacular - rise up the order. The 'races' may have been non-competitive, but the second in particular featured plenty of close action, lock-ups and contact - with Wehrlein finishing minus a wheel cover, Evans briefly tagging the back of Muller as the pack converged late-on, and Felipe Massa nosing into the wall at the chicane while battling Oliver Rowland for the lead after the Virgins had departed.

You can take the FE drivers out of the city...

What the times tell us

Deducing this year's pecking order from a largely unrepresentative FE locale is something of a challenge, especially as observers are not exactly privy to the planned test programmes.

So, despite the heavy caveats that come with the timing board, it's all there is to go on. Delving into the qualifying simulations and putting together the laps run on the full 250kW allowance of power suggests that 11 of the 12 teams all slot in within a second.

But that doesn't tell the full story as the final pieces of the puzzle will only fall into place in Riyadh, where the teams will conduct the final bits of set-up work to 'chase the track'. Getting laps on the clock during testing is the top priority, and drivers are instructed not to risk everything to eke out every single fraction.

But there's also a need to understand how the powertrains perform at full-power, so there's also no sense in taking it easy. Stitching together the best sector times from across the test produces the following order.

Theoretical best qualifying times

1 BMW Guenther 1m14.985s
2 Mahindra Wehrlein +0.097s
3 Dragon Muller +0.148s
4 DS Techeetah da Costa +0.217s
5 Nissan Buemi +0.232s
6 Virgin Bird +0.248s
7 Jaguar Evans +0.255s
8 Venturi Massa +0.509s
9 Audi Abt +0.527s
10 Porsche Lotterer +0.569s
11 Mercedes Vandoorne +0.654s
12 NIO Turvey +1.224s

Seven of this year's 10 powertrain suppliers are represented in the top seven, all within a tiny 0.255-second bracket. That's one lock-up's worth of time and, on a tight street circuit, one tiny error could be the difference between making superpole or starting way down the order.

Of the newcomers, Mercedes, and its Venturi customer team, look the closest to the established runners in apparent qualifying trim, while Porsche seems to be a little further behind. NIO, meanwhile, is likely to prop up the grid based on these times.

The timing data implies race trim form is a little different, and although there were two test 'races', the nuances in testing run plans make it more difficult to assess this order. But, taking all lap times within a certain window, discounting anomalies and creating an average lap time provides some estimate of each team's position.

"The cars seem to all be more reliable than they used to be, and they're very close on lap time. So, that kind of tells you that there isn't much in it, which should make for an awesome season six" Sylvain Filippi

However, there are situational aspects - such as proximity to other cars and attack mode usage - to consider when reading this assessment.

Using the representative times gathered from Friday's race simulation - not all drivers participated on Wednesday, while Mahindra had attack mode issues in that 'event' - the average lap time order looks somewhat different to the overall fastest times placing.

Virgin used the test very differently to the other teams, lapping on average 1.5s faster than its powertrain supplier, Audi, before pitting, and so its times have been adjusted to reflect this.

Friday race simulation average lap time

1 Nissan Buemi 1m21.985s
2 Venturi Mortara +0.183s
3 Virgin Bird +0.253s
4 Dragon Muller +0.262s
5 Audi di Grassi +0.273s
6 Mercedes Vandoorne +0.427s
7 Mahindra Wehrlein +0.574s
8 Porsche Lotterer +0.611s
9 Jaguar Evans +0.642s
10 DS Techeetah Vergne +0.746s
11 BMW Sims +0.761s
12 NIO Turvey +1.378s

What this could mean for the season

Given the tiny spread of times from the overall fastest laps, it looks as if FE is in for another tight season.

While this shouldn't really be a surprise given maximum power is capped at 250kW in the technical stakes and the sporting rules - particularly in qualifying - are designed to ensure regular mixed up grids, it is likely good news for a series that had eight different winners from the first nine races last year and would like to see a repeat situation with two of motorsport's most-famous and successful teams on the grid.

The times also appear to suggest that despite the - mainly tongue in cheek - suggestions Mercedes and Porsche would come into FE and dominate, predicting a winner at this stage is again a foolish pursuit.

Nevertheless, the long-run analysis and Buemi's race 'win' put Nissan e.dams on top at Valencia. That's pretty remarkable given the FIA banned its 2018/19 twin-motor concept and left it just four full months to switch to a single-motor approach.

"We are very happy because this is the first year where we didn't encounter any problem so it's really a pretty good [start]," said Nissan team manager Francois Sicard. "We were already looking at performance [after two days] and normally it's not the main focus. But we are in a pretty good situation and have good data."

Behind Nissan in the long-run assessment comes a magical mix of closely matched teams - with Venturi, Virgin, Dragon and Audi all figuring strongly.

Mercedes will be encouraged by Venturi's form and its own efficiency demonstration to sneak in ahead of Mahindra, Porsche, Jaguar, DS Techeetah and BMW.

Reigning champion squad DS Techeetah may not feature highly in this order, but Vergne and da Costa nevertheless figured strongly at the front of the Friday 'race' before pulling out early. All the evidence points to NIO being in for another tough season.

The "unrepresentative" nature of the Valencia track came up time and time again last week, but, as Virgin team boss Sylvain Filippi explained, it still "tells you something".

"The cars seem to all be more reliable than they used to be, and they're very close on lap time," he continued. "So, that kind of tells you that there isn't much in it, which should make for an awesome season six."