FIA Formula E veteran Lucas di Grassi has told Motorsport Week that drivers in the series are the second-best paid in any motorsport after Formula 1.
The Brazilian, who has completed all 10 seasons of the all-electric sport – and will contest the 11th – has seen the sport grow from the first-ever E-Prix in Beijing, which he won, and the mystery and doubt surrounding its future, to a sport with ever-growing fan engagement and technological advances.
A decade is not particularly a long time in an historical context, and di Grassi pointed-out that it has overcome a lot of issues to get to where it is now, and spoke of his pride at what it has already achieved.
“Well, I’m very happy that the series has survived, actually,” he said. “There hasn’t been any motorsport series that has survived 10 years, that was created in the past probably 50 years.
“Super Formula, whatever, here and there, ETCR, it always changes, the series always collapses, and Formula E has been going strong.
“Manufacturers are there, the cities are there, the races are there. Hopefully we can improve even more. But I’m very proud of what Formula E has achieved.
“We could have achieved more. For example, the four-wheel drive. I’ve been asking for four-wheel drive for seven years now or more, actually in Gen 2.
“I was like, ‘guys, I drove four-wheel drive cars in LMP1s with it. I know what I’m talking about. You guys, you don’t know what you’re talking about, because you never drove a four-wheel drive car.’
“I did drive a four-wheel drive car, and electric cars are made to be four-wheel drive, because you have a front motor for reaching. So, how on earth do you put a motor in the front and you don’t use it to accelerate? And now it just shows how good the car is.
“I mean, we are two, three seconds faster, using only 50 kilowatts of power, so imagine if you used the full 250. That would be a game-changer.
“So for me, Formula E could have done a lot of things better, especially on the innovation side. But in general, I am very happy and very satisfied with where we reached.
“And also COVID. The COVID times really hurt Formula E, because we were racing in cities. If it wasn’t for COVID, I think there would have been a little bit more innovation on the car side, smart innovation, I think Formula E would have been even bigger now. But with everything that happened, I think we are in a good spot.”
Formula E ‘has become a way to earn money’ for young hopefuls
On the issue of driver finances, di Grassi pointed-out the differences between a younger driver entering the series from an F1 feeder, such as his new team-mate Zane Maloney.
The Bajan is forgoing his title hopes in FIA Formula 2 to take a spot in the Lola Yamaha ABT squad alongside di Grassi, and instead, drivers like Maloney are now in a better financial position, given most are paying their way through the lower formulae.
“Yeah, Zane is super talented, he has a lot of experience with Formula 2. Basically, Formula E has become a way for you to earn money, to become professional, right
“Before, when I did GP2 back then, Formula 2 now, you had Formula 1, IndyCar maybe, and endurance racing with very few teams in an LMP1, so it was even a tighter market.
“Now at least Formula E has another 20 spots or 22 spots that drivers can make a living, a good living out of it.
“I think Formula E is probably the second best-paid motorsport series in the world on average, on average, after Formula 1, and all the drivers are professionals, so Zane, I think, understood, and he has the mindset that he wants to be a professional driver.
“So to choose this path, he was a reserve driver for Andretti, test the car, got experience, impressed everybody in Formula 2,leading the championship, winning many races, so it was a natural choice for the team. And he’s doing a fantastic job.”
‘Proud’ of Lola’s nascent steps into FE
Di Grassi is now tackling the GEN3 Evo cars, with, as mentioned, the all-wheel drive and extra power, as well as different tyres. Lola’s influence has been felt since it announced it would take over powertrain duty with Yamaha for the ABT team, and di Grassi says the new regulations may be a benefit to being more competitive.
“You can never copy 100 percent what you got last year, especially because of the tyre change. So it feels that, although I can carry over some experience, you have to start with a new car from scratch, especially when you have a new tyre.
“So what we are running [in testing] is very different from what we were running last year and last year we had a bad powertrain, so we had to compensate with other things. I hope this year we have a good one. I think we have a much better one.”
“They [Lola/Yamaha] provided the tools for us now to set up in the way we want. But without a competitive powertrain, the right weight, the right performance, it would have been very difficult.”
“So I’m very proud of what the team has achieved so far, but it’s still a long way to go.”
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