Why Formula E is plotting a major change of philosophy

Nine races. Eight different winners. Eight different starters from pole. The 2021 Formula E season has lived up to the championship’s social media call to arms: “can you predict the unpredictable?”. But for how long is that state of competitive toing and froing sustainable now the series is no longer a disruptive upstart but becoming part of the motorsport establishment?

Seven different drivers stood atop the podium last term from 11 races. It was 10 from 13 rounds the season before. The benefit to this almost random sequence of success stories is that all but two squads possess a middling to strong chance of bagging a win at some point.

That paints a refreshing picture. Formula E isn’t limited to the current two-team dogfight in Formula 1 or the Toyota monopoly of the World Endurance Championship. But the flux at the top means the electric competition is without a clear central plotline.

That story-telling problem is exacerbated by the 2021 calendar. Hands have been tied by the global health crisis to a degree, but in fulfilling chief championship officer Alberto Longo’s desire to stage a record-breaking 15-race schedule, all bar Monaco will be double-header events this year.

It’s an open secret in the paddock that as much as all teams will take a victory as and when, they’d prefer it to come on the Sunday so that celebrations may last. For those who taste the champagne on the Saturday, 12 hours later there’s a reset and the hard work must start again. Then, 24 hours later, the limelight has often shifted to someone else completely.

Arguably, it’s helped contribute to a lack of a clear rivalry to generate headlines. When Formula E first arrived, for three seasons it was Lucas di Grassi versus Sebastien Buemi. On track, they hammered around Battersea Park for the fastest lap point to pluck the title from the grasp of the other. Off-track they featured far more regularly among the news reels.

While the quality of the entire field has massively increased since, there’s not been a clear hero and a defined villain consistently at the front and trading paint. That comes at a cost when it’s time to rally and engage fans.

Lucas di Grassi, ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport, and Sébastien Buemi, Renault e.Dams, practice starts

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

The topsy-turvy nature has in no small part helped lure the likes of Porsche and Mercedes to the grid, with the expectation that they can claw their way to the front of the field in double quick time. But now they’ve arrived, spent their tens of millions developing a powertrain, it’s less charming when they can be upstaged by those writing far smaller cheques and might have one title to show for their efforts rather than a packed trophy cabinet.

Questions are raised concerning when a strong narrative, a gripping season-long story might be lost to a champion who was outside the top six until the last throw of the dice.

That’s why philosophical change is afoot in Formula E just now, with teams and series bosses in alignment to find a sense of rhyme and reason as to who stands on the top step.

Puebla showed the group one handicap at its worst. All vying to be last over the line to gain that fraction more grip, drivers fell over one another for the duration of the out-lap

As the championship consolidates and is no longer quite the fresh-faced eccentric it once was, it wants to be taken more seriously. And that comes with a sacrifice. Formula E wants to shed some, but not all, of its unpredictable nature in order to create repeat winners.

It wants the likes of reigning champion Antonio Felix da Costa and Stoffel Vandoorne to consistently fight at the front and act as the faces of the series. It wants to create heroes who remain in the headlines and aren’t swiftly replaced by the next person and the next.

As Formula E chief executive officer Jamie Reigle explains to Autosport: “There's some things we can do around growing the sport. And that's the dialogue we're having with the existing teams now. Are we building a sport that is really recognised around the world?

“What I hear regularly from the teams, and I believe personally, and Formula E believe is, we want to build stars, we want to build heroes. If you want to build stars and heroes, you want the best drivers, the best teams at the front of the grid. We shouldn't apologise for that.”

Alberto Longo, Deputy CEO and Chief Championship Officer of Formula E and Jamie Reigle, CEO of Formula E

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

The root cause of the unpredictability comes from the qualifying format. The field is split into four groups of six cars. Those leading the points must set their flying laps first on a track that hasn’t been rubbered in and so doesn’t readily offer up lap time. As such, they struggle to progress into the final superpole shootout. They assemble on the grid lower down the order. If they’re not streaking up the leaderboard, naturally the points scores are lower. They slip down the table to be replaced in the first group and so the cycle starts over.

Take the tweet from the official Formula E account last Friday. It read: “We were going through our notes from the weekend and we’re wondering if Puebla was the first time the same two drivers qualified on the front row in two consecutive races…”

PLUS: How Puebla's high-altitude encounter gave Formula E's new leader breathing space

Oliver Rowland and Pascal Wehrlein’s one-lap efforts in Mexico were the exception rather than rule that the quickest drivers can repeatedly break through to the front. And that’s the nature of the qualifying format on a good day.

Puebla showed the group one handicap at its worst. All vying to be last over the line to gain that fraction more grip, drivers fell over one another for the duration of the out-lap. There were dives for position into Turn 1 of their flying laps and no one came up smelling of roses. A similar mess reared its head ahead of race five in Berlin last year. It’s not an isolated case.

Teams and strategists are defiant in why they must take such a risk and not leave the garage early to find clean air. But it cops the wrong sort of attention and looks clumsy if you’re being kind. Somewhat amateurish if you’re not.

That’s why Formula E, alongside a cost cap, alongside the Gen3 regulations, alongside finding a replacement team for Audi, has the qualifying format in its crosshairs and will change the set-up to avoid similar image problems and look to create its regular stars.

There’s a fair bit of back and forth over what look the new system will take. But this is Formula E so “it’s not going to be conventional” reckons Reigle.

Antonio Felix da Costa, DS Techeetah, DS E-Tense FE21 Rene Rast, Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler, Audi e-tron FE07

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

For one, that means a Q1, Q2 and Q3 format won’t be borrowed from Formula 1. When the group one six-car pseudo qualifying race is sketchy enough, 24 cars battling for track position isn’t the right way to go.

As for when to introduce the new qualifying, thematically, Gen3 would seem the most appropriate time for a full body reset. But teams want it sooner and next season, 2021-22, could serve well as an effective trial year during the final runout of the Gen2 machines. That gives time to iron out any teething problems rather than endure the elimination-style qualifying format saga that F1, after two rounds, swiftly put out to pasture after the 2016 Bahrain Grand Prix.

“We're looking at [qualifying] pretty seriously,” continues Reigle. “It's a little bit of drawing board work right now.

“One of the enablers of creating stars is that the best guys consistently perform. Are your rules allowing that? It needs to be absolutely fair rules, and everyone has the same opportunity to compete.

Ditching the fanboost interactivity and performing something between a procedure and full-blown surgery on the qualifying format will go a long way to improving Formula E’s sporting prowess

“But do the rules contribute to randomness? Or do they contribute to the best guys emerging? That's the general thinking.

“Then the question is, 'OK, well, with our qualifying format, we have the groups. And the first group is the folks at the top of the championship. And some would argue there's a disadvantage to that because of the track. Is that optimising for ‘hero-ing’ your best drivers and teams?' It's not. It's optimised for providing more parity across our groups.

“There's a lot of virtues to that. But if I come back to going to build a tier one sport, you want to ‘hero’ the best drivers, the interaction of the driver and their engineering team.

“We will look at that qualifying format. Not radically, but in a way in which allows the top guys to win more. I don't think we should apologise for that because that's what sport is.”

Mitch Evans, Jaguar Racing, Jaguar I-TYPE 5

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Similarly, potentially facing the chop in time for Gen3 is fanboost – the quirk whereby people can vote to give their preferred driver a power leg-up in the race.

Since day dot, it’s been viewed as a gimmick by many. While Formula E prides itself on this element allowing fans to have some small bearing on an on-track battle, it’s contradictory to the notion of pure sport, of which ex-Manchester United commercial boss Reigle is a massive advocate.

Fanboost is analogous to UEFA announcing for Euro 2020 that Jack Grealish has won a popular vote and as such can have five seconds on the ball when he cannot be tackled.

One further grievance with fanboost – aside from its decline in users and the suspected artificial nature of some of the voters – is that it’s consistently rewarded to the same drivers. The slight irony alongside Formula E’s quest to promote familiar faces is that Vandoorne, da Costa and one of de Vries or Lucas di Grassi have gained the aid in every race so far this term. They have a stronghold. As such, the charm that fanboost did or did not possess in first place has now worn off.

Ditching that fanboost interactivity and performing something between a procedure and full-blown surgery on the qualifying format will go a long way to improving Formula E’s sporting prowess. It will remain a technological testbed with lighter, more powerful Gen3 cars and the advent of in-race rapid charging.

But now it’s bidding to consolidate around its stars to put the drivers on an even keel with the machines. That creates the better stories, gives prospective audiences more to latch onto and invest their time in so that Formula E can continue to grow as the series prepares to hit its troublesome teens.

Oliver Rowland, Nissan e.Dams, Nissan IMO2, Edoardo Mortara, Venturi Racing, Silver Arrow 02, Jake Dennis, BMW I Andretti Motorsport, BMW iFE.21, Jean-Eric Vergne, DS Techeetah, DS E-Tense FE21

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images