Le Mans returnee Lotterer on leaving Formula E: 'It was definitely my biggest challenge'

F1

Andre Lotterer might be leaving Formula E for a Le Mans return, but the German ace explained to Damien Smith just how much he enjoyed and valued the electric series

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Lotterer is now looking at another top-line Le Mans and WEC effort after Formula E

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Damien Smith

Two more races, on a new street track in Seoul, South Korea, and André Lotterer will be done with Formula E. The Porsche ace is relishing the chance to head back to Le Mans and endurance racing with the new 963 LMDh contender, with hopes and dreams of adding a fourth victory at the 24 Hours to the trio he won with Audi, in alliance with the manufacturer that means the most to him.

“Formula E is the toughest championship to be in” Andre Lotterer

At 40, his exit from Formula E likely spells the end of Lotterer’s frontline single-seater career, which should be quite a moment for a driver who’s always admitted open-wheelers are where his heart really lies. All those years in Japan racing in Formula Nippon and Super Formula, flying back and forth to Europe to juggle his Audi sports car commitments… From that perspective, the South Korean races on August 13/14 will mark a watershed for the German. Not that we should expect him to shed a tear. Hell, this is André Lotterer. He’s as tough as they come in the modern era.

But when we met in London’s ExCeL ahead of last weekend’s Formula E rounds, I couldn’t help but ask: is he feeling anything different ahead of his Formula E full-stop? “Not at all actually,” he bats back. “The same focus, I go to work with the same mindset, drive as fast as possible, work with the team and my goal is always to win. I’m not emotionally disturbed in any way, or even thinking about the end.”

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In his first FE season in 2017 – Lotterer has had many podiums but no wins in the series

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What he’s also not about to do is change his tune on Formula E, now that the end is nigh. Lotterer is on one hand an old-school ‘petrol-head’, well versed in classic Porsche traditions thanks to his upbringing surrounded by 911s in his father’s garage business. But on the other hand he remains a genuine convert to the electric-powered revolution and is defiantly unapologetic about embracing what he calls “the race of the future”.

In fact he goes further. Now and as always, with no particular axe to grind given that Formula E will soon be a part of his past, Lotterer insists the series so many like to denigrate has put up the biggest, most demanding challenge of his long and varied career.

“Definitely my biggest challenge, and I went through quite a few,” is the verdict on how he will reflect on his time in the series. “It’s the toughest championship to be in, that’s for sure. I think ever actually. As other drivers will say, it is the most difficult series to enter. The others, I always say are like riding your bicycle outside. You can go fast and it’s not too difficult. This is like riding your bicycle through your apartment, through the tables and chairs and sofas. It’s slower but a lot more difficult.”

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What will really nag away at him – unless he can pull off something special in Seoul – is that Lotterer is set to conclude his Formula E career without a win. Podiums pepper his record, first over two seasons with Techeetah and then across the past three with Porsche. But victories have slipped through his fingers. This season now nearly passed promised more, both for Lotterer and team-mate Pascal Wehrlein. But after playing the team game and dutifully following Wehrlein home to break Porsche’s Formula E duck with a 1-2 in Mexico City, the season has turned into an anti-climax. Lotterer even drew a complete points blank in the London double-header and remains a lowly 11th in the standings, one place and two points behind his equally disappointed team-mate.

Nevertheless, he doesn’t come across as bitter and there are no parting barbs for a series in which his reputation has been slightly tarnished by the number of collisions he has been involved in over the past five years.

“It’s a new way of racing,” Lotterer states. “I’ve never seen such a level in quality and a lot of things are very equal in terms of chassis, tyres and brakes. Last year we saw more differences through the grid but mostly because of the qualifying format. But this year” – with the new ‘duels’ system that has gone down well with the drivers – “it’s very consistent. We’ve upped our game a lot in qualifying. But if you operate at 99% and leave 1% somewhere on the table, you don’t win. Teams are operating at 100% and it really gets down to the last little detail. If it does not go 100% for you, you are not there. Everyone is performing well, it’s the last season of the Gen2 car so everyone knows it well and also drivers know the championship. You have to put everything together perfectly.”

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Lotterer admits his heart has always been in open-wheel racing – here he is in Super Formula in 2010, the season before his title year

What about that amount of contact? Of course, it’s not just Lotterer. Everyone on this high-quality grid has stories to tell and are forced to get their elbows out. It goes with the tight city-street territory. Although it seems there has been much less controversy this term. “It seems like, a little bit,” he agrees. “More due to the fact similar people are at the front and the grid is not so mixed up.

“But contact is inevitable to be honest, it’s somehow a part of it. If you go to these places and expect us to overtake… Most of the places you don’t even have the apex that’s clean. The chances for things to go wrong are quite high and you always look like idiots afterwards, but there’s just not really the space. It’s a boxing ring.”

Lotterer is a straight talker and has never been one for corporate BS… Which makes his earnestness about Formula E’s environmental messaging seem more genuine. Again, he doesn’t have to stick to the script, especially now – but the series appears to have made him think differently about his sport and the world it exists in.

“The interesting aspect here is that you can use motor sport as a strong platform to make a message for sustainability and electro-mobility,” he says. “That’s something I never really thought about before and you realise there is a purpose. Professionally these are the races with the most action, drama and battling, and high skill levels throughout the whole field. City races were never something I was used to do, so it’s been completely a new thing for me. I learnt a lot also in terms of engineering, the solutions and innovations you can go for with the teams. For sure, it’s almost the most interesting part of motor sport.”

He knows so many out there – including a large proportion of Motor Sport readers – remain sceptical. He’s heard it all. But inevitably, coming from an insider’s perspective, he will continue to make the case for the series, even as an ex-Formula E racer.

“It might sound like a lot of people are not convinced, if you are a petrolhead for example. But looking at the experience from the inside it’s a lot more complex and challenging than conventional motor sport series. And I am a petrolhead.

“If you are in a super-professional environment with the best drivers in the world it’s about the best performance and you make an exception of what you drive. What matters is how you battle and get there. It’s also the championship where the driver has the most responsibility in terms of performance. Not like other series where if you are in the right car you have a pretty high guarantee you will be at the front. Here, there are maybe one or two teams where it is difficult, but for the rest everyone has a shot.”

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Though dubbing himself a petrolhead, Lotterer believes more than ever in Formula E’s message

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After South Korea, Wehrlein will go his way developing the new Gen3 Formula E which he has already sampled in Porsche’s first tests – and Lotterer will go his, focusing solely on the excitement of the new 963 campaign. But he has a clear message for the traditionalists who continue to dismiss Formula E and what it represents.

“That’s fine,” he says. “Traditional racing is still great and still very interesting. It’s just that we are at the beginning of a whole new chapter. We’ve convinced a lot of people to get into it. The others, they should just watch it a little bit more and they will understand. It offers a much better show than traditional races, where not much happens. For me, Formula E is very intense and dramatic, the battling is quite spectacular. I don’t think any other racing series offers that at such a level. Eventually they will enjoy it.”

No emotion, certainly no hint of a tear. But you sense, for all André Lotterer still has to look forward to in motor racing, he’s genuinely going to miss his Formula E adventure.

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