Mahindra Racing will be hoping that the Gen3 Evo era will bring a change of fortune for the team in Formula E.
The Indian outfit have finished second bottom of the Teams’ Championship in the last two seasons in the all-electric series. In Season 10, they only beat ERT by 24 points to prevent being rock bottom of the standings.
Mahindra have competed in Formula E since its inception in 2014 and achieved a best finish of third in the 2016/17 season with Felix Rosenqvist and Nick Heidfeld. They have not finished higher than fourth since then.
Recent years have been particularly tough as the team have languished towards the back of the field. Mahindra have not won a race since Alex Lynn won the second ePrix in London in 2021 and have only grabbed two podiums in the last three seasons.
But with the Gen3 Evo car making its way to FE, Mahindra are hoping to make a step towards challenging more consistently at the front with their whole new powertrain for Season 11.
Frederic Bertrand says it would ‘make no sense’ to draw conclusions about the 2024/25 season in pre-season testing
FE is currently in pre-season testing at the Jarama Circuit in Madrid. In the fourth session of the week on Thursday, David Beckmann topped the time sheets for new team Kiro Race Co.
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Mahindra drivers Edoardo Mortara and Nyck de Vries were 18th and 22nd respectively in the session, but as this is testing, this is not much to go off in terms of the real order for the first race in Sao Paulo next month.
Team principal Frederic Bertrand has the same view, as speaking with Formula E Zone, he says it would be ‘totally stupid’ for the team to draw any final conclusions for the season based off of these runs in Madrid.
“What was important was that in our construction phase, we needed those tests to make sure that we have enough time to race with the others, understand a bit more what we are doing compared to the others but at the end, we do the tests for ourselves,” he said.
“We don’t look so much as what the others are doing. For sure it’s always interesting, but that’s not the main thing. Everybody has its own programme, everybody has its own strategy behind the tests, so to take any conclusion out of it would be totally stupid and make no sense.
“The goal is to use this week to be ready for Sao Paulo and in Sao Paulo we can start to count. How we start there, the best we can for sure, but this time for sure if you compare it to Season Nine, we want to keep consistently improving and not going down.”
Mahindra had an encouraging end to the 2023/24 season
Mahindra have retained de Vries and Mortara for Season 11. The Dutchman returned to FE following his sacking from AlphaTauri Formula 1, while the Swiss driver made the switch from Maserati to the Indian outfit last year.
In Season 10, the duo could only manage 47 points between them after a torrid start to the season. The team did not score points until Mortara finished eighth in the race in Berlin.
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In the second half of the season, Mahindra made a huge stride forward in performance as the team began to grab results towards the front. Mortara finished fourth in the first ePrix in Portland, while de Vries came home fourth in the first race in London with the Swiss driver fifth in their only double-points finishes of the season.
With an encouraging end to Season 10 and with a new exciting era coming to the series in 2024/25, Mahindra will be hoping to continue the momentum and get back to the front.