ABB FIA Formula E Season 10 World Championship teams guide 

Envision Racing
SEASON 9 Ranking: 1st

Envision Racing was the surprise package of 2023 as the combined points of Nick Cassidy and Sébastien Buemi scooped the Chinese-owned but British-based team a first ever Formula E title at the ninth time of asking.

Mostly owned by renewables technology giant Envision Energy, the team has proved to be the leading customer-focused squad for each of the three rules sets of the all-electric championship. It made its name initially as Virgin Racing before partnering with DS Automobiles in the Gen1 era where it scored notable wins with Sam Bird and in the 2017-18 campaign had a decent crack at the title.

For the second epoch of Formula E in 2018-19 the Virgin team was acquired by Envision and a change in direction came with a customer deal via Audi. It was a fruitful partnership with Sam Bird, Robin Frijns and Nick Cassidy accruing five wins and often humbling their OEM supplier rivals.

But when Audi withdrew from Formula E, the team’s management leader Sylvain Filippi had to be agile for the Gen3 era and soon fixed up a strong partnership with Jaguar.

Utilising a potent technical package developed exclusively in-house via Jaguar’s links with the Williams Advanced Engineering company, Envision was able to hit the ground running in 2023 and quickly established itself as one of the leading Formula E teams that could challenge and execute a charge for title success.

Cassidy’s four wins and strong supporting results from the experienced Buemi ensured that Envision grabbed the title in the final event at the London ePrix last July.

It was the realisation of a dream for Filippi and the Envision contingent, which is often spearheaded at races via ex-BMW and Porsche executive Franz Jung. It is he who reports directly to Envision CEO Lei Zhang, who occasionally frequents races.

The team has a strong management and engineering cluster that includes long-time team manager Leon Price (son of legendary entrant David Price) and ex-Red Bull engineer Mike Lugg. They work from premises in Silverstone which houses a relatively new driver-in-the-loop simulator.

For 2024 the team replaces Jaguar-bound Cassidy with old boy Robin Frijns, who returns after a single season sojourn at ABT CUPRA.

As well as being a leader on track, Envision Racing is one of the most active sustainability advocates off it with numerous initiatives including the Recover E campaign which showcased a car made completely from e-waste.

The Drivers

Sébastien Buemi

Age 35
Nationality Swiss
Position in 2023 6th

The wily old fox of Formula E, Sébastien Buemi will begin his 10th season and his second with Envision still believing he can add ePrix wins and maybe a title to his highly decorated record.

A constant winning force in the Gen1 and start of Gen2 eras, Buemi was synonymous with the Renault and Nissan brands until the start of 2023 when a surprise move to Envision unfurled before him.

It was an inspired move with the Swiss ace taking two poles and several top-six finishes, including a third at the season finale in London, to push himself back into the top six best drivers.

Buemi is the ultimate professional and very canny. He is also ultra-competitive with a highly driven personality that has the respect of the entire paddock.

The animated Buemi, who spent 2009-11 in Formula 1 with Toro Rosso, has a steely focus on getting the best out of both his car and his team.

He has struck up a strong partnership with up-and-coming Envision engineer Connor Summerville. It is one that could pay huge dividends this season as one of Formula E’s seasoned drivers aims to show the younger generation the way.

Robin Frijns

Age 32
Nationality Dutch
Position in 2023 22nd

Robin Frijns rejoins Envision after a single season away following a coruscating season with the ABT CUPRA squad.

He was initially torn on whether to leave the German team but such is the competitiveness of the Dutch master that he decided he had to be in a team that could offer him the chance of victories.

Frijns’ almost paranormal reflexes behind the wheel are well known, and if there is a wet race the rest of the grid may as well give up and go home.

A natural instinct for handling cars doesn’t always make a natural racer and sometimes Frijns has found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bad luck or bad judgement? It’s hard to gauge sometimes.

Frijns’ return to Envision was surprising because he left in the summer of 2022 under a cloud after changes in his engineering team that he didn’t agree with.

Now in his eighth Formula E season, Frijns cuts a more clinical figure and on his day he will reap rewards; in his last season with Envision, he was on the podium four times and will be looking to better that tally. It would be a major surprise if he didn’t add to the injustice of just two ePrix wins to date.

Jaguar TCS Racing
SEASON 9 Ranking: 2nd

Jaguar hit the headlines at the end of 2015 when it announced a return to international motorsport as a factory entity. Its first season in Formula E was underwhelming but the Big Cat soon started to tick off the milestones. A first podium came at Hong Kong in 2017, then a pole at the one-off Zurich ePrix a few months later. All these were achieved by Jaguar’s ever-present driver Mitch Evans, who then claimed a sensational first win – at the 2019 Rome ePrix.

But it wasn’t until Jaguar’s fifth campaign in the 2020-21 season that it became a true title challenger, again with Evans. At the season finale in August 2021, amid the sparse and imposing environs of Berlin Tempelhof, Evans looked like he was about to convert the promise into a title. But an inverter issue on the grid scuppered that hope for both he and Jaguar, meaning that he went in to the final Gen2 season of 2021-22 with several points to prove.

While Evans just fell short to Stoffel Vandoorne’s Mercedes – despite his four race wins that season to Vandoorne’s single victory – he and Jaguar grew hugely in every department, meaning that a concerted push to be the first Gen3 champion in 2022-23 was clear. But once again, Jaguar was beaten, finishing in second place in the teams’ championship behind Envision and third in the drivers’ standings, trailing Jake Dennis’s Andretti-run Porsche and Nick Cassidy in the customer team Envision. Despite this disappointment, Jaguar had created the most successful car in the Jaguar I-Type 6, taking eight wins and a 50% victory strike rate over the course of last season.

The team itself has a close relationship with WAE Technologies company (formerly Williams Advanced Engineering) in the design of its Formula E cars. This alliance has just announced a new technical facility in the UK, close to the original TWR works in Kidlington, Oxfordshire.

The management team is a strong one with team principal James Barclay having great experience from other prestigious UK-based brands like Lotus and Bentley. He works closely with WAE’s Craig Wilson and Jaguar TCS Racing sporting manager Gary Ekerold.

The team faced some destabilisation prior to the start of the 2023-24 campaign when its technical director Phil Charles left the squad. That apart, Jaguar TCS enter the new season among the favourites, with last year’s runner-up Nick Cassidy being prised away from Envision Racing to join fellow Kiwi Evans.

The Drivers

Mitch Evans

Age 29
Nationality New Zealand
Position in 2023 3rd

It would be harsh to bracket Mitch Evans as the bridesmaid of Formula E, but over the last few seasons it’s been tempting due to his record of finishing fourth, second and third in the final standings.

His talent and focus are unimpeachable and as an all-round Formula E driver he’s right at the top of the pecking order. He’s as dangerous a driver for nailing races as any.

Going into his eighth season with Jaguar TCS Racing, Evans has a claim to be the most embedded driver with a manufacturer on the grid. He believes in the Jaguar project fully and knows that perhaps 2024 is his prime opportunity to finally deliver the crown.

A former GP3 champion and GP2 race winner, by rights Evans should have been a grand prix driver and in the early years of his Formula E career there was some hangover from the fact he didn’t get an opportunity.

Now though he’s more at peace and knows he’s close to that elusive title. He starts as one of the favourites to achieve that, and perhaps how his friend and new team-mate Nick Cassidy begins life at Jaguar will ultimately swing which Kiwi grabs the title.

Nick Cassidy

Age 29
Nationality New Zealand
Position in 2023 2nd

Nick Cassidy was the blockbuster move of last season when he joined his childhood mate Mitch Evans at Jaguar on a multi-year deal.

The Aucklander was the revelation of 2023, winning four races and finishing a close second to Jake Dennis in the standings. Ironically it was Evans who probably inadvertently scuppered his friend’s title chances when he collided with the then Envision driver in Rome.

It didn’t unsettle the friendship and the pair go into the season in a strong frame of mind. That needs to be sacrosanct if Jaguar is to achieve both the teams’ and drivers’ crowns in 2024.

Cassidy is an accomplished and technical driver who evidenced last season that he can read and complete complex peloton-style ePrix effectively. His wins in Monaco, Berlin and Portland were masterclasses of efficiency and strategy, while his final victory in the wet of London ExCeL was spellbinding in concentration and control.

All of that meant Cassidy’s stock rose and Jaguar made its move. It possibly would have done anyway because Cassidy had contributed significantly to the development of the I-Pace.

Andretti Formula E
SEASON 9 Ranking: 3rd

Andretti is now ubiquitous with almost all forms of international motorsport, and by 2026 it hopes to cap that off with a Formula 1 entry under the GM banner too.

Its involvement in Formula E is a long one as it is one of the original founding teams, having run initially as a customer squad before partnering with BMW between 2018 and 2022. In that time its fortunes have swung wildly from occasional underachiever to title winner with its star driver Jake Dennis last season.

Ever-present throughout its Formule E tenure has been the guiding hand of Roger Griffiths, the former Honda Performance Development chief who essentially built the Andretti platform in the electric series.

Griffiths has presided over the project diligently but faced a test at the end of 2020 when BMW announced a surprise withdrawal from Formula E just two seasons into its commitment. That caused a sea change at Andretti as it was forced to rebuild and source the necessary budget to continue. It succeeded and was able to display speed and consistency last season to provide Jake Dennis with a crack at the title.

The fact that Dennis did so by scoring 50% less wins than both other serious title rivals Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy meant that Andretti simply made less mistakes and capitalised via a string of outstanding backs-against-the-wall performances from an inspired Dennis.

Andretti is a tight team unit that hit the ground running in 2021 following BMW’s exit. Its masterstroke was to pull off an agreement with Porsche to run the 99X car for the Gen3 period, knowing that the German giant was throwing everything it could into the project after several below-par seasons following entry into Formula E in 2019.

While that relationship has proved fruitful, it has also witnessed several on-track altercations, mostly between Dennis and Porsche Formula E driver Pascal Wehrlein, which brought forth some fraught conversations between the supplier and customer teams.

As well as Griffiths, key players in the Andretti include team manager Campbell Hobson, who joined from multiple champion DS Techeetah and, of course, Michael Andretti himself who attends several races a season.

Andretti replaced a jaded André Lotterer with former Venturi and Nissan driver Norman Nato in the off-season in an attempt to hunt for a teams’ title in 2024 and add to British racer Dennis’s 2023 crown.

Jake Dennis

Age 28
Nationality British
Position in 2023 1st

Formula E’s new rock star came of age in 2023 with a brilliant campaign that netted a fully deserved title. Jake Dennis looked to be chasing a career in GT3 racing instead in 2020. A year later he was a two-time ePrix winner in his first season at Andretti and became hot property with rival teams circling for his signature.

A relaxed and affable figure out of the cockpit, Dennis belies the steely and often sparky character within it. His occasional feuds with fellow Porsche-powered driver Pascal Wehrlein have presented a genuinely hostile rivalry.

It says much for Dennis that he knuckled down to commitment with Andretti after it was left to rebuild following BMW’s withdrawal. That calcified the relationship between driver and team and enabled it to grow to the point that Dennis flew out of the traps in the first Gen3 era races last season.

Dennis has an innate ability to read Formula E races and thrives on consistency. Repeating what Jean-Éric Vergne achieved in 2018 and 2019, with back-to-back titles, is more than just a possibility for Dennis and Andretti this season.

Norman Nato

Age 31
Nationality French
Position in 2023 10th

Norman Nato will compete for his fourth team in as many seasons after a transient career in Formula E so far that has shown flashes of real class, but also a propensity to fly well below the radar.

He was a GP2 winner against the likes of George Russell and Charles Leclerc so is clearly a talented driver, but he has a curious low-key presence.

This appears to have been a part of his short tenures at Venturi and Nissan in 2021 and 2023 respectively, where he won for the former and scored the latter’s best result of the season with a second at Rome.

His exit from Nissan seemed very tough as he had out-scored much-vaunted team-mate and fellow Frenchman Sacha Fenestraz 63 points to 32.

Andretti is a prime opportunity for Nato to add to his Berlin 2021 victory for Venturi. However, he knows that with Dennis on the other side of the garage he may be asked for some subservience at races in 2024.

Nato is a consummate team player and highly rated by his engineers, so maybe for Andretti, at last, it has found the perfect team-mate and foil for its champion in the other cockpit.

TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team
SEASON 9 Ranking: 4th

The Porsche behemoth has so far not quite delivered in Formula E, although signs of a breakthrough were plain to see last season with six wins from the 16 races for the 99X via Pascal Wehrlein, António Félix da Costa and eventual series champion Jake Dennis in the 99X of Andretti.

Porsche made the decision to enter Formula E early in 2017 after ceasing its legendary and ultra-successful 919 Hybrid LMP1 sportscar programme.

It instantly found its first ever all-electric campaign difficult though, despite taking a podium and pole, via André Lotterer, in its first few events.

If ever a team has a genuine claim to having been affected more than others by the Covid-19 pandemic, then it was Porsche. A two-month suspension of the season in 2020-21 meant rookie team Porsche was unable to gain experience of new racing tracks, leading to a compromised second season.

A further insipid season in 2021-22, the final Gen2 season, followed, which forced key changes to be made including the hiring of former ABT technical general Florian Modlinger. This helped to turn around Porsche’s fortunes somewhat with da Costa joining Wehrlein to form one of the championship’s most potent duos.

The Gen3 development phase was started early with the team out testing before rivals in June 2022. It paid dividends with three wins in the first three races of last season for the 99X via a Wehrlein double in Riyadh and Dennis’s opening win in Mexico City. But an intrinsic lack of one-lap pace in qualifying counted against a Wehrlein title challenge which, in the early phase of last season, looked inevitable.

That is a key area that is being focused upon in the 2023-24 season with Modlinger stating at the October 2023 pre-season Valencia test the lack of one-lap pace was “a clear weak point”.

“This we need to improve and react to both on Pascal and António’s side,” added Modlinger.

For the coming season, Porsche has continuity with Wehrlein and da Costa, the latter of whom will now concentrate solely on Formula E and not be allowed to dovetail his burgeoning sportscar career at the same time.

The TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E team is probably under more pressure than any other to tick off that so far elusive first title. With motorsport boss Thomas Laudenbach often at races and other senior figures such as Modlinger and commercial guru Carlo Wiggers pulling the strings, Porsche looks and feels like a 2024 title winner in the making already.

Pascal Wehrlein

Age 29
Nationality German
Position in 2023 4th

Three seasons into his stint with Porsche, Pascal Wehrlein seems to have put behind him his nomadic past and became a mainstay of a prestige OEM.

With an added maturity and professionalism, Wehrlein has blossomed into a rounded performer who looked to be a shoo-in for the 2023 title after winning two of the first three races last season.

While that didn’t prosper, Wehrlein still looked to be more at ease than he had done in previous seasons. A third win, in Jakarta, last season was interspersed with a public falling out with Andretti’s Jake Dennis and by the final weekend in London the two were at loggerheads again.

Ultimately, poor qualifying one-lap pace counted against Porsche and Wehrlein last season leaving the former DTM champion and F1 driver with too much to do on race day.

Wehrlein is a clinical racer who finds gaps that others often don’t see. It doesn’t always pay off though, and Wehrlein has had his fair share of lairy moments with other drivers.

If anything, last season pointed to a more consistent performer and he is expected to again mount a title challenge.

António Félix da Costa

Age 32
Nationality Portuguese
Position in 2023 9th

António Félix da Costa made a big move from DS Techeetah to Porsche in the summer of 2022 and while it seemed like a natural home, there were initial teething issues in settling in to the famed manufacturer.

That all appeared to change at Cape Town last February when da Costa took a stirring win, executing one of Formula E’s greatest overtakes to steal the win from former team-mate Jean-Éric Vergne.

It was a bit of a false dawn though as da Costa still had plenty of difficulties in nailing one-lap pace from his Porsche during the season. The results tailed off and a disappointing final standing of ninth was way off what we usually expect from the 2019-20 champion.

Da Costa began his Formula E career with the small Amlin Aguri team in 2014 before then having spells at Andretti and DS Techeetah. He was the stand-out performer in the pandemic-hit season of 2020-21, but since has proven he is one of the top-drawer drivers alongside the likes of Evans, Vergne, Wehrlein, Dennis and Cassidy.

Personable and fun, da Costa has an engaging outlook on life, which endears him to even his fiercest rivals.

DS Penske
SEASON 9 Ranking: 5th

DS Penske completed its first Formula E season – as an alliance between Jay Penske’s Dragon Penske organisation (Jay is the son of the legendary Roger Penske) and DS Automobiles – in a curious middle ground. That was a surprise considering that the DS element (through its previous incarnation with Techeetah) was the joint most-decorated team in Formula E history, along with the now-defunct Mercedes EQ team.

The DS Penske partnership was concluded in early 2022 and by the late summer of that year the key engineering and organisational elements of Techeetah had been rolled into the new operation.

It is one stacked with competence and experience, with engineering leader Léo Thomas, who was a key part of Jean-Éric Vergne’s back-to-back titles from 2018-19, and Nigel Beresford who counts a decade-long stint at Roger Penske’s CART/IndyCar operation and experience from Tyrrell F1 in the 1980s and ’90s.

In addition, DS Penske operates like no other in Formula E from the viewpoint of having separate test and development teams to its race crew. This had worked exceptionally well in the Gen2 era, but on last year’s results questions started to be asked about if it was quite as dynamic and efficient in Gen3.

A key change came on the eve of the 2023-24 season when Stellantis Motorsport programme manager Thomas Chevaucher left his role to join DS Penske. It remains to be seen how this might affect the team, although if paddock rumours about former Jaguar TCS Racing technical chief Phil Charles coming across to the team are true then DS Penske would likely be facing more positive prospects further down the road.

Based in Satory, just south of Paris, the DS Performance branch of the team works from cutting-edge premises with its own proving ground and state-of-the-art driver-in-the-loop simulator. The Penske side of things brings Jay Penske as an infrequent attendee at races, while the day-to-day side of things is conducted by former Venturi tech chief Nicolas Mauduit.

On the driving strength Jean-Éric Vergne will enter an eighth season in the famous black and gold colours, while 2021-22 champion Stoffel Vandoorne starts his second season for the French/American team.

Both cut frustrated figures last season in a campaign that only netted one true highlight through Vergne’s defensive win in Hyderabad when he reprised Gilles Villeneuve’s legendary 1981 Spanish Grand Prix win by absorbing colossal pressure throughout the later stages of the race.

Jean-Éric Vergne

Age 33
Nationality French
Position in 2023 5th

Jean-Éric Vergne is one of the most important and accomplished drivers in Formula E through the sheer weight of his achievements and personality.

In some ways he’s the archetypal racing driver, coming across, at times, as moody and diffident. On other occasions he is upbeat and highly motivating for teams, a driven character who thrives on success. His Formula E record is superb with 11 ePrix wins and two titles, in 2017-18 and 2018-19, both in different rules sets (Gen1 and Gen2).

Vergne has been a mainstay of the DS programme, having first raced with the team back in 2015-16 in an ill-fated and tetchy season with the DS Virgin squad. Two seasons later and it was a much happier Vergne that reaped the success of building what eventually became the DS Techeetah team that enjoyed a strong period of supremacy.

The turn of 2023 brought a still fast and focused Vergne, but the new DS Penske alliance needed time to grow. With significant upgrades expected for 2024, Vergne could be in the frame to make it a hat-trick of titles, although the likelihood is that he will have to wait until 2025 and the new homologated Gen 3Evo era.

Stoffel Vandoorne

Age 31
Nationality Belgian
Position in 2023 11th

The career of Stoffel Vandoorne was stellar up until some unfortunate timing with his two-season stint at a decaying McLaren F1 effort in 2017-18.

Before that the Belgian had one of the most impressive junior single-seater careers ever seen and appeared to be primed for a long F1 career. Cruelly he was denied that, but he repurposed himself and joined Formula E, racing initially with the HWA Racelab squad and then the ‘full fat’ Mercedes EQ team between 2018 and 2022.

He signed off with a withdrawing Mercedes in 2022 with a title-winning campaign. Although it only featured one win (at Monaco) it was a brilliant case study in consistency.

When Vandoorne signed for DS Penske in 2022 he probably knew that he would need the best part of a season to bed himself in alongside Vergne. But even he wouldn’t have foreseen just how tough 2023 would become with just a pole at São Paulo and a fourth in Jakarta being highlights.

Vandoorne will be planning a major fightback this season as he plans to reassert his reputation as one of Formula E’s smartest and deftest racers.

Maserati MSG
SEASON 9 Ranking: 6th

One of the heritage names of motorsport returned to the international scene in 2023 after a 66-year absence when factory entity Maserati, the legendary Trident marque, began its all-electric adventure.

It did it via the former Venturi squad based in Monaco, cultivating a pseudo-manufacturer status, which in reality is using the same powertrains as the DS Penske operation.

From the same Stellantis family of marques, Maserati was attracted to Formula E to further accelerate its all-electric road cars, which have already started to come on stream.

This new-look entry began horribly last season with multiple shunts and a dearth of points threatening to send the team into crisis. But just when it appeared its luck had run dry, new signing Maximilian Günther pulled off sensational performances in Berlin and Jakarta to inject much-needed confidence into the team.

The big surprise last season was the poor form of former Venturi stalwart Edoardo Mortara, who a season before had been a genuine title contender heading into the final races. Mortara left the team for Mahindra last summer and was replaced by F2 race winner Jehan Daruvala, who came the opposite way after a season being Mahindra’s test driver.

Maserati MSG – the MSG denoting Monaco Sports Group, a carryover from the former Venturi Formula E organisation – has an interesting structure with the two majority shareholders coming from outside the motorsport industry.

Scott Swid and José Aznar Botella are the duo who call the shots at the team, and who are both ambitious to grow it into a title-winning unit. Botella is the stepbrother of Formula E chairman Alejandro Agag.

There was however some disruption pre-season when former BAR and Force India F1 test driver James Rossiter left the team suddenly just as it had moved into the new Monegasque facilities.

A replacement wasn’t established by the October pre-season test in Valencia, while several other changes occurred in the background. This included former chief engineer Jérémy Colançon following Mortara out of the door to Mahindra, and Maximilian Günther’s engineer Cyril Blais stepping up to take over Colançon’s position.

Maserati MSG is not expected to have a strong Formula E season this time around but could prove to be an occasional danger to the Porsche and Jaguar favourites, as well as Stellantis sibling DS Penske.

Maximilian Günther

Age 26
Nationality German
Position in 2023 7th

Maximilian Günther burst onto the Formula E scene as a 21-year old in 2018 after a difficult one-off season in Formula 2.

It was evident from the beginning that he was fast but clearly had a wild streak in him that needed to be tamed. Just when he got a foothold in the championship some erratic management by the Dragon Penske operation cost him some momentum before he was poached by Andretti BMW.

That was the making of the young German as he dazzled in the second Gen2 season, winning brilliantly in Santiago and Berlin.

The following season was a testing one as Jake Dennis arrived and outshone Günther, who jumped ship to Nissan. It was bad timing because the 2021-22 Nissan was a poor offering and Günther was at best a midfield runner.

He was undaunted by the experiences, however, as he fought back last season with some exceptional performances. His win and third place in Jakarta were highlights, with the victory being one of the most conclusive of the campaign.

He is an engaging character out of the car. In it you’ll struggle to find a more ruthless operator.

Jehan Daruvala   

Age 25
Nationality Indian
Position in 2023 Not contested

Jehan Daruvala is a surprise but welcome addition to the grid as the only rookie to be confirmed this season.

The third-youngest driver in Formula E (behind Dan Ticktum and Sacha Fenestraz) Daruvala got into professional motorsport via backing from the former F1 concern Force India, replacing Mahindra-bound Edoardo Mortara, after he in-turn had acted as a reserve driver at the Indian team.

Since then, he has proven to be an occasional force in F2 where he won races for the Carlin and Prema teams. But his four-season run in that championship came to an end in 2023 and he refocused to take a seat alongside Günther at Maserati MSG.

He acquitted himself well at the pre-season test in Valencia despite some off-track disruption with the departure of team principal James Rossiter and the switch of tech chief Jérémy Colançon to Mahindra.

Don’t expect too much of Daruvala in the first half of the season. Come the second half he should be capable of a few surprises and keeping Günther honest as the team attempts to get a firm footing in at least the upper midfield of the grid.

Nissan Formula E Team
SEASON 9 Ranking: 7th

If ever there was a sleeping giant in Formula E then it surely must be Nissan. Now in its sixth season as a manufacturer, the only Japanese marque in the paddock has generally flattered to deceive in prior campaigns, with only its first (2019-20) and last (2022-23) showing any kind of form that befits its status as one of the biggest OEMs in the series.

A genesis of those difficulties can be traced back to 2018 when it entered the Gen2 era with a unique and intricate dual-motor powertrain. This was difficult to master but when it worked Nissan appeared to have a notable advantage. But when it didn’t, its drivers Sébastien Buemi and Oliver Rowland were often in the barriers.

When its rivals started to question legalities on its deployment, the innovation was shut down and essentially outlawed for the following season. It was a tumultuous time for the team as its leader and inspiration through the DAMS (stylised as ‘e.dams’) era, Jean-Paul Driot, was terminally ill and died in August 2019 after a long battle with leukaemia.

Without the much-respected Driot at the helm, change followed, including the way the team went racing. Driot’s sons Olivier and Grégory took brief charge before the DAMS operation was sold to former F1 driver Charles Pic. The Formula E branch was then absorbed by Nissan, which by 2022 became a full factory entity.

In charge of the squad is managing director and team principal Tommaso Volpe, a former Lotus and Infiniti marketing and commercial guru. He has started to morph the team into the Nissan way and, from a technical standpoint, grew its department with the hiring of former Spark Racing Technology lynchpin Théo Gouzin.

Gouzin works alongside racing veteran Vincent Gaillardot, who has been the brains of the Nissan and before it the ultra-successful Renault powertrains which are generated through Nissan’s bases in Paris and Le Mans, as well as a network of key suppliers, including the Viry-Châtillon Alpine facility.

Nissan enters the 2024 season with some decent momentum after a strong end to the previous campaign in which Norman Nato scored a season-best result of second in Rome – its first podium position since 2021. That though wasn’t enough to galvanise Nato’s seat for another season and he was replaced by Oliver Rowland.

Rowland will get a second phase at Nissan after previously joining the team for a three-season stint in 2018 when he was a last-minute replacement for F1-bound Alex Albon.

Sacha Fenestraz

Age 24
Nationality French/Argentinian
Position in 2023 16th

Formula E has a good record in its first decade of bringing forth strong rookie drivers. Oliver Rowland, Pascal Wehrlein, Felix Rosenqvist and reigning champion Jake Dennis are just a few of the better ones.

Sacha Fenestraz added himself to that list in his maiden season last term via a pair of fourth-place finishes – at Monaco and Portland.

In the strictest sense he was not a newcomer having made a late and brief cameo deputising for an injured Antonio Giovinazzi at Dragon Penske in August 2022. That had come after a couple of seasons as reserve and development driver at Jaguar where he fast gained a reputation as a savvy and technically gifted driver.

This caught the attention of Nissan, which invested in Fenestraz for 2023. He showed flashes of real promise in a car that was initially difficult to get to grips with.

There were mistakes from both driver and team, notably in Rome and Mexico City when each got confused on energy targets. Those apart, Fenestraz impressed with his pace, although he did end up with a big points deficit to the ousted Nato at the season’s end.

Oliver Rowland

Age 31
Nationality British
Position in 2023 21st*

The return of the prodigal Nissan son! Oliver Rowland made his Formula E name with Nissan from 2018 to 2021 – seasons in which he won one of the 2020 Berlin ePrixs, took four pole positions and four other podium finishes.

A combative racer, Rowland has a reputation as one of the out and out fastest drivers on the grid. A return to Nissan could be at just the right time as the Japanese giant invests heavily in its rejigged team and made progress in the first Gen3 season last year.

The 31-year-old from Barnsley has never been the more experienced driver in a Formula E team having previously raced with Sébastien Buemi in his first spell at Nissan and that other hyper-experienced driver Lucas di Grassi briefly at Mahindra.

That could be the making of Rowland, who has matured considerably since he came into Formula E full time in 2018.

Along with Frijns, Rowland is a master in the wet, with an abundance of natural car control. He could be the surprise package for 2024, in the sense that he may be able to overcome some of the limitations of the Nissan package, which occasionally came to the surface last season.

NEOM McLaren Formula E Team
SEASON 9 Ranking: 8th

It’s quite hard to get one’s head around the fact that this team is essentially a cut and paste of the multiple title-winning Mercedes EQ team.

Substituting silver for papaya was one of the easier transitions for the team which, at one stage, looked as if it would be consigned to history as having only a brilliant but brief dalliance with Formula E.

That all changed in early 2022 when Ian James, the team principal of the then Mercedes EQ team, was simultaneously introduced to Saudi Arabian mega-city, multi-industry project NEOM, and McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown.

Between the three of them they orchestrated an ambitious new venture that featured McLaren entering as a team and the former Mercedes EQ squad metamorphose into a fresh squad with Nissan customer power.

A relocation from Brackley to Bicester Heritage was the major logistical hurdle it needed to clear ahead of its ‘maiden’ 2022-23 season as NEOM McLaren Formula E Team. But by the first few races last January the squad was utilising its strong strand of team continuity to start the season strongly via a pole (Jake Hughes in Riyadh) and podium (René Rast, third place at the same venue).

When further strong results in the first phase of the season came forth, including a second pole for Hughes in Monaco, the future looked as bright as the team’s garish overalls.

But a worrying dip in results in the second half brought more than a dose of reality for the NEOM McLaren team, with only 16 points accrued in the final eight races.

While that was beyond disappointing the pace was, on most occasions, still there, meaning that despite frustrations with the speed of development in the Nissan powertrain, James and his senior team were confident it might reprise some of the highlights from its rookie season as NEOM McLaren.

The team has a strong technical structure; James is supported by a wealth of experience including multiple DTM champion Gary Paffett as team manager, ex-Ferrari chief race engineer Chris Dyer as technical director, and two of the most revered motor sport engineers amid the paddock in Stephen Lane and Albert Lau.

In Jake Hughes, NEOM McLaren has clearly uncovered a real gem, while it was forced to replace René Rast with Jaguar’s Sam Bird last summer after Rast was unable to cram in offers from BMW in the World Endurance Championship and DTM projects with his all-electric options.

Jake Hughes

Age 29
Nationality British
Position in 2023 12th

Like Sacha Fenestraz, Jake Hughes was one of the stand-out rookies of 2023, surprising many, especially with some ferocious qualifying pace and understanding the complex racing formats from the off.

But those who have been around the junior single-seater ladder for the last five or six years were less surprised as Hughes is regarded as an intelligent racer.

His pole lap, in only his second ever ePrix in Diriyah last January, was undoubtedly one of the laps of the season on one of Formula E’s toughest challenges.

Hughes fared well against his then team-mate René Rast, outscoring him on points and bringing forth two poles, one of them at Monaco.

He’s always had uncertainty in his career via a chronic lack of financial assistance to get top-line drives. That’s why the continuity of staying with NEOM McLaren could see Hughes flourish this season, to make at least a breakthrough onto the podium, if not even challenge for occasional wins when circumstances allow.

He will definitely revel in having another experienced team-mate in the guise of Sam Bird, with whom he has already formed a strong bond.

Sam Bird

Age 37
Nationality British
Position in 2023 8th

Until 2022 Sam Bird had one of the most enviable Formula E records, winning races in every season, being an occasional title challenger and carving out a well-earned reputation as one of Formula E’s formidable racers.

Since that time, he’s struggled. An up-and-down last two seasons with Jaguar yielded no wins and only four podiums, which, put in the context of then team-mate Mitch Evans’ eight wins, was plainly not what anyone anticipated.

Bird was very quick at times last season but key mistakes, including taking Evans out in two races – at Hyderabad and Jakarta – ultimately lost him any chance of a contract extension with Jaguar.

He didn’t take that well. But he now at least has a decent chance to fight back with a strong team and a car that has proven able to compete at some tracks. Certainly, his experience with other manufacturers like DS, Audi and Jaguar will be welcome to McLaren right now.

Bird will be reunited with his former engineer at DS Virgin/Envision, Stephen Lane, so he should be in a position to make at least a few spicy cameos as he gets set for his 10th campaign at this level.

ERT Formula E Team
SEASON 9 Ranking: 9th

ERT, Electric Racing Technologies, is a new name for 2024 but one where the faces within it will be entirely familiar as what was formerly China TCR, NEXTEV, NIO and NIO 333 goes through another iteration of identity.

New investors via the Far East have come to the fore for the Chinese-owned but British-based team that has had more dips, weaves, rises and troughs than most in the Formula E paddock.

As one of the first outfits to exist in Formula E, the originally entered Team China Racing squad shocked the world as it claimed the inaugural drivers’ title in 2014-15 following some astonishing results by Nelson Piquet Jr.

That though would be an early peak as the team descended into various states of chaos by the sixth season when the squad registered no points at all. It was at this stage that a new consortium from China and Hong Kong took over and the team went from NIO to NIO 333.

Improvements were slow but eventually came last season when Dan Ticktum and Sérgio Sette Câmara, two of the best raw young talents in the world championship, combined to score 42 points and moved from wooden-spoon holders to occasional solid midfield-and-beyond contenders.

The team moved to its new plush base at Silverstone in 2022 and immediately found more stability with a guiding hand of team principal Alex Hui and experienced management hands in Russell O’Hagan and Roberto Costa.

The crux of the team lies in its continuing insistence on being its own manufacturer. Via a series of strong partners, including Xtrac and Integral Powertrains, the NIO 333 car has been shown to occasionally punch above its weight. While this was usually through one-off epic qualifying results and early race cameos – a perfect example being Dan Ticktum’s outrageous start and early race lead in Berlin last April – the team suffered with poor efficiency compared to its rivals over a race distance in the infancy of Gen3.

With the two seasons of homologation continuing through to the end of 2024, this is likely to remain unchanged, but the crucial takeaways from last season was a genuine operational and sporting improvement that allowed Ticktum and Sette Câmara to actually get stuck in.

Ticktum occasionally took that to the absolute extreme but his stock has certainly risen in the last 12 months and a new-found maturity appears to be shaping him into what most hope will be a long Formula E career.

Dan Ticktum

Age 24
Nationality British
Position in 2023 17th

Is Dan Ticktum an enfant terrible of racing or just a misunderstood firebrand? The truth is probably somewhere in the middle but one thing that isn’t questioned is his fearsome pace and tenacious racer’s attitude that should by rights have made him hot property after showing sparks of greatness in 2023.

With all that comes a temper and an occasional wildness that stymies his progress. That was seen at Berlin last year when he put together a remarkable opening lap to go from fourth to first in to the first corner.

But there were more eye-catching performances from Ticktum, notably in Cape Town and Monaco when he finished sixth on both occasions.

To achieve that in the unfancied NIO 333, Ticktum definitely has something special. He was able to extract strong one-lap pace from the package and despite a clear deficiency in sustained race pace, to achieve 28 points was very impressive.

The bigger question really for Ticktum, a two-time Macau F3 winner and multiple F2 race victor, is why he didn’t get a sniff of a manufacturer drive for 2024. Should he continue to mature in 2024, that will surely be just a matter of time.

Sérgio Sette Câmara

Age 25
Nationality Brazilian
Position in 2023 20th

Sérgio Sette Câmara arrived at the ERT team (then NIO 333) at the end of 2022 with a glowing reputation as someone who could deliver remarkable things in substandard machinery.

He’d done this consistently in the chaotic environment of Dragon Penske from 2020 to 2022, easily outshining highly touted team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi in the process.

On the face of it ERT didn’t look much of an upgrade for 2023 but Sette Câmara knuckled down impressively to score some strong results including a fifth in Hyderabad and an eighth in Rome.

The fact remained though that he scored half the points of Ticktum, a driver who Sette Câmara should have been closer to. But if there was any ill luck going it usually went to the Brazilian, who often cut a dejected figure with more than his fair share of poor reliability and incidents not of his making.

This season is therefore a big one for Sette Câmara as he looks to kick on in his fourth full campaign. He plainly has the talent to make a name for himself in Formula E, yet the real question is whether he will achieve that at ERT, a team with heart but limited resources.

Mahindra Racing
SEASON 9 Ranking: 10th

The British-based Indian team has made an international name for itself in sporting terms since 2014 and has been something of a giant-killing act in the Gen1 and partly in the Gen2 eras, achieving five victories with Felix Rosenqvist, Jérôme d’Ambrosio and Alex Lynn.

But with that last win, via Lynn, coming over two seasons ago, Mahindra has had a couple of years of relative decline. Amid that came the surprise departure of the team’s founding-father Dilbagh Gill in September 2022. But that was trumped by a shock appointment of former FIA senior administrator Frédéric Bertrand to the role of team principal.

Bertrand inherited a team with low morale and one knowing that it would be on the back foot immediately in the Gen3 era. The last campaign was a disastrous one, which put the squad at its lowest ebb when it had to withdraw its customer team ABT CUPRA’s cars after a suspension problem in Cape Town.

If that were the nadir, another low point was an irreversible breakdown between Bertrand and driver Oliver Rowland a few races later. This manifested itself in a mid-season split and Rowland was replaced by single-seater Spanish journeyman driver Roberto Merhi.

In the other cockpit Lucas di Grassi often festered, knowing that his best efforts would be rewarded with the lower reaches of points scores only. This was due to a propensity of the Mahindra M9 Electro being relatively thirsty on energy and difficult to set-up from a vehicle dynamics perspective.

The team started to fracture towards the end of the season with many of the senior crew clearly coming to the end of their careers with Mahindra. This included former technical director Lewis Butler, who was replaced by Maserati MSG’s Jérémy Colançon at the end of 2023.

Mahindra’s relationship with engineering specialist ZF also started to sour and Bertrand was left to start his rebuild. This included bringing in Edoardo Mortara from his increasingly unhappy time at Maserati MSG, and a returning Nyck de Vries, himself bruised from a draining half-season Formula 1 experience with AlphaTauri.

Mahindra has the feel of a team in transition. It has eyes on 2025 and the Gen3 Evo homologation. For the forthcoming season it will again not be troubling the top table and will, again, be looking to score consistent points to elevate it ahead of the likes of ERT, NEOM McLaren and Maserati MSG to establish itself as at least a midfield runner.

Nyck de Vries

Age 28
Nationality Dutch
Position in 2023 Not contested

The 2020-21 champion Nyck de Vries makes a return to Formula E after a troubled Formula 1 outing with AlphaTauri.

But the evidence so far is that actually the four-time ePrix winner has taken strength from that difficult time and has a greater perspective on life and his career as he gets set for a dual Formula E and FIA WEC campaign in 2024.

A deal with Toyota in the latter is not much of a surprise, but his Formula E signing to Mahindra certainly was. Had de Vries not got his F1 chance last season he would have raced for Maserati MSG, so many were assuming that deal would be repeated for 2024. But not so.

Mahindra harnessed a coup in securing de Vries’ signature and so starts a second phase in the all-electric world championship for the Dutch ace.

It is one which likely has more longer-term prospects than anything tangible for 2024, such is the deficit from the two most competitive manufacturers Porsche and Jaguar to Mahindra. But de Vries already looks hungry for 2025 when the overhauls to the Mahindra squad will have been completed by new boss Frédéric Bertrand.

Edoardo Mortara

Age 37
Nationality Swiss/Italian
Position in 2023 14th

Edoardo Mortara is one of Formula E’s greatest enigmas. Tremendously quick sometimes with a propensity to run and hide from the opposition. Other times you barely notice he’s in the race.

When the former of those frustrating traits snowballs he has a season like last when he was outscored 101 points to 39 by team-mate Maximilian Günther.

It was clear at the culmination of that campaign that Mortara needed a change, and fast. Despite having a year on his contract to run with Maserati MSG he made the move to Mahindra to drive for only his second team in six seasons.

Mortara was quick off the mark in Formula E, almost winning his first ePrix at Hong Kong in 2017. By the following season he had achieved that breakthrough success, again at the same venue, and five other victories followed at Venturi, where in 2021-22 he was a title contender right up until the penultimate event.

It’s not a secret that Mortara is a confidence driver, one who needs to feel wanted, and perhaps Bertrand’s guiding hands will be the foundation for Mortara to evidence that last season was a blip in an otherwise impressive career.

ABT CUPRA Formula E Team
SEASON 9 Ranking: 11th

As well as DTM and several other championships, ABT has a long and largely successful history in Formula E counting several important milestones and achievements since 2014.

Among these was winning the first-ever race at Beijing in September 2014 when Lucas di Grassi capitalised on the infamous Nick Heidfeld and Nico Prost shunt at the final corner.

It all culminated in a title for ABT in 2016-17 with Lucas di Grassi and, from the following season onwards, Audi became fully immersed in Formula E for the next four seasons.

That brought another title in 2017-18 when di Grassi and team-mate Daniel Abt combined to win the teams’ title, but by 2020 Audi, like BMW and subsequently Mercedes, was out of the all-electric championship and ABT was forced to sit out the 2021-22 campaign completely.

ABT didn’t descend into self-pity, though. Instead, it went out and found the necessary partners to return for 2023, again with a VW brand in the shape of SEAT’s sporting off-shoot CUPRA.

With two of its former DTM race winners in Nico Müller and Robin Frijns part of the squad, things looked promising for a noteworthy return. Unfortunately for ABT CUPRA, as a customer team, it became clear very quickly that the Mahindra M9 Electro package was not up to the job. A litany of disasters, most not of the team’s making, came forth. These included a broken hand for Frijns on the very first lap of the first race, while both cars had to be withdrawn due to Mahindra’s suspension issue in Cape Town three races later.

It was only at Berlin that the team really had something to smile about when Frijns and Müller used their old knowledge of Hankook rubber in their DTM days to make the most of rare Formula E wet weather to claim an outrageous 1-2 on the starting grid of race two. Alas, the race finishing positions were more pedestrian – ninth for Müller, 17th for Frijns

One thing that ABT CEO, Thomas Biermaier, and his troops have though is steel and fortitude, so they dug in gamely. A strong end to the season featured Müller claiming a brilliant sixth in Rome (race one), followed by an eighth and 10th in the remaining races of the season.

While Müller was on the up, Frijns lost heart and left after a single season to rejoin old team Envision.

In his place comes ABT old boy Lucas di Grassi, who will be 40 in August, in one of the more romantic stories for 2024. The veteran Brazilian now has the look of a driver with one last big season in him.

Nico Müller

Age 31
Nationality Swiss
Position in 2023 19th

Nico Müller has often been lauded as a special talent and looking at his racing record it’s not hard to see why. An 11-time DTM race winner, he went up against the very best in that ultra-competitive category and made a big name for himself.

His Formula E career has been blighted by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, specifically with Dragon Penske from 2019 to 2021. That yielded only a fortuitous second place at the dramatic and infamous Valencia ‘energy-gate’ in 2021, and it looked for a time as if his stint in Formula E would be a short one.

Then came the call-up from ABT, which he drove with for five seasons in DTM. It was a difficult year on ABT’s return in 2023 with the Mahindra M9 Electro, although the genial Müller put in same giant-killing performances in the final events, particularly at Rome where he took an astounding sixth position.

It was some justification for Müller and ABT CUPRA’s never-say-die spirit that points finishes were even achievable. While any more than that seems unlikely for Müller this season, he will again be a danger to others should opportunities present themselves again.

Lucas di Grassi

Age 39
Nationality Brazilian
Position in 2023 15th

Now the elder statesman of the world championship, Lucas di Grassi has a credible claim to being the archetypal Formula E driver. That’s through a sense of relentless competitiveness and also a genuine hunger for expanding the technological and sustainability credentials of the greenest motorsport.

On the cusp of 40, di Grassi’s days of winning ePrix races and vying for titles is most probably over. But his natural thirst for competing means that he will always be a threat.

This will be his fourth Formula E team in as many seasons, and if it were any other team than ABT CUPRA there might be doubts that he could have an immediate impact. However,  his previous seasons with the team, including 12 ePrix wins and the 2016-17 title, means  that he is in the best position  for a while to build something strong for the short- and mid-term future.

A kind of motorsport polymath, di Grassi is equally at home pontificating on geo-global politics or AI-flavoured tech debates. He spends his off-season studying at Harvard and holds a position with the United Nations as a clean air ambassador.