Formula E 2023: Team modifications, new car and the five biggest talking points as season starts in Mexico City

Season 9 of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship begins this weekend for the 2023 Hankook Mexico City E-Prix.

A new period of the world’s premier all-electric racing sequence is ushered in with new groups, drivers, rules, and the introduction of the revolutionary Gen3 – the world’s most sustainable racing car.

The sequence can even make its debut in a few of the world’s most iconic cities together with Cape Town, Sao Paulo, Portland and Hyderabad, with races throughout the season stay on Channel 4 and Eurosport.

Here are all the key talking points forward of this weekend’s curtain-raiser:

Fresh faces in the paddock

Season 9 will see the introduction of a bunch of new faces and groups in the paddock, however few are extra important than the arrival to the grid of legendary automotive manufacturers Maserati and McLaren.

Maserati will compete in a single-seater racing championship for the first time in six a long time. In reality, the final time one among its single-seaters was seen on observe was in the fingers of Maria Teresa de Filippis – the first girl to qualify for an F1 Grand Prix – in 1958. They will take over the now defunct ROKiT Venturi Racing staff as Maserati MSG Racing, with Edoardo Mortara and Maximilian Guenther their drivers.

McLaren, on the different hand, joins as one among the most profitable manufacturers in motorsport historical past with twenty Formula 1 World Championship titles, 180 Grand Prix wins and three Indianapolis 500 victories throughout its illustrious historical past. All eyes can be on whether or not former Mercedes Team Principal Ian James can lead the British-based staff into an electrical future and add to its motorsport dynasty.

ABT Sportsline, in the meantime, make a welcome return to Formula E as a buyer staff, working underneath the Mahindra powertrain. Despite a hiatus in Season 8, ABT are amongst the most profitable groups in Formula E historical past, with 47 podiums and 1,380 points to its identify.

Turning to the drivers, Jake Hughes arrives from the Formula 2 Championship to hyperlink up with Rene Rast at Neom McLaren. Meanwhile Nico Mueller (ABT CUPRA), Norman Nato & Sacha Fenestraz (each Nissan) be a part of Rast as returning names to Formula E.

Antonio Felix da Costa (TAG Heuer Porsche), Sebastien Buemi (Envision Racing) and Stoffel Vandoorne (DS Penske) are the former champions linking up with new groups for Season 9 as a part of a bunch of driver modifications in the off-season.

Welcoming the ‘world’s most sustainable racing car’

Excitement builds as the hotly anticipated Gen3 is about to make its aggressive bow at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez on Saturday.

The car is the pinnacle of high-performance electrical mobility and is the world’s first web zero carbon race car in the world’s first web zero sport. The Gen3 can even be the quickest Formula E car but with a high pace of 200mph, which means much more dramatic wheel-to-wheel motion is anticipated in 2023.

It has been billed ‘the world’s most sustainable racing car’, with greater than 40% of the vitality used inside a race produced by regenerative braking, and all tyres and spare components recycled after racing.

Evolution of sporting rules

There are a number of modifications to the sporting rules for Season 9, with the most vital being the introduction of a set variety of laps fairly than the conventional 45-minute timed race.

Another main change to the format will see revolutionary fast-charging launched at choose races later this season, involving the world’s most superior EV battery to ship an vitality increase over a 30-second interval, working as a de facto pit cease. The fast-charging addition additional underlines Formula E’s position in offering the expertise bedrock for the on a regular basis electrical street autos of the current & future.

The evolution of sporting rules continues with the elimination of FANBOOST and the overhaul of assault mode, the latter remodelled right into a new system labelled ‘attack charge validation (ACV)’ which guarantees so as to add much more drama in Season 9.

Formula E Unplugged

Away from the observe, Formula E lately introduced the return of ‘Unplugged’ – a behind-the-scenes sequence taking viewers nearer to the drivers and groups in the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship than ever earlier than.

Series two takes an in-depth take a look at a few of most compelling tales behind the Formula E paddock via Season 8, which was the Net Carbon Zero Championship’s most intensive to this point with sixteen races in the coronary heart of ten iconic world cities together with New York, Jakarta, London, Mexico City and Rome.

UK viewers will be capable of watch Unplugged stay on terrestrial tv on Channel 4 at 08:00 GMT on Sunday 15 January, with all six episodes obtainable to obtain on All4.

Mexico City kicks off thrilling new calendar

Mexico City will stage the first race of the new Formula E season for the first time in its historical past in what can be the seventh E-Prix at the iconic Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez circuit.

The race has one among the most electrical atmospheres on the Formula E calendar and, with the metropolis recognized for its adoring motorsport fan base, the tv viewers at residence can count on a pulsating spectacle with 40,000 followers in attendance.

TAG Heuer Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein claimed victory final season after a sequence of desperately unlucky races on the observe for the German, together with in 2019 when his car shut down simply yards from the end line to disclaim him his first Formula E victory. Lucas di Grassi is the solely double-E-Prix winner at the observe and can be trying to make it a hattrick on Saturday along with his new staff Mahindra Racing.

It kicks off what’s arguably Formula E’s most fun calendar to this point, with debut races in Hyderabad (India), Cape Town (South Africa), Portland (USA) and Sao Paulo (Brazil) all to come back earlier than the season culminates with a double-header at the ExCeL London for the 2023 Hankook London E-Prix.

::The ABB FIA Formula E World Championship returns on Saturday 14 January for the 2023 Hankook Mexico City E-Prix with races throughout the season stay on Channel 4 and Eurosport