Dan Ticktum has told Motorsport Week of his excitement at Formula E‘s forthcoming GEN4 car, predicting that it is going to be “f***ing fast!”
The British driver is now one of the all-electric championship’s hottest properties, after a Season 11 which was, in essence, his breakout year.
Ticktum, suffering for a number of years in uncompetitive machines, benefitted from ERT’s rebranding as Cupra Kiro, which saw a huge cash injection and Porsche powertrains.
It gave the charismatic mullet-clad wheelsmith an opportunity to compete at the right end of the grid, and duly did so by taking a maiden pole position and win to vindicate his status as one of FE’s big talents.
An out-and-out racer, Ticktum was never particularly a fan of the GEN3 car, often describing it as an “unorganic” machine.
But the series last week launched the hotly-anticipated GEN4, which is expected to reach speeds of over 200 mph, bringing fresh excitement as it tries to reach new audiences and fans.
Ticktum is confident that GEN4 will make capital on the hard work FE has already done to secure a new cross-section of motorsport fans.
“There’s been peaks and troughs with Formula E,” he exclusively told Motorsport Week in an interview. “And it’s growth, it is still growing – the numbers are there.
“They’re not numbers made up by the championship, they’re from independent sources. It’s going in the right direction.
“I think obviously the influence of government and legislation, electric cars will have a big impact, and that’s unfortunately something as a championship we can’t control.
“What we can control is making sure that the next car looks f***ing cool, and it’s exciting to watch racing.
“I think it’s fair to say the step between Gen2 and Gen3 wasn’t what we all wanted In terms of how it looked, and the difference in performance.
“We made some good steps between those cars, but it wasn’t a ‘wow’. I’ve seen some stuff on GEN4 [already] and from what I’ve heard, it is going to be a ‘wow’!
“It’s going to be a very big step. We’re talking kilowatts here but I’m talking horsepower [and ] it’s pretty much double, it’s 470 to just over 800.
“And obviously with no gears you have that power all the time so a car that’s delivering 800 or so horsepower all the time is going to be f***ing fast!”
Ticktum: GEN4 will ‘sort the men from the boys’
Ticktum’s enthusiasm for the GEN4 machine is quite clearly authentic, and is already looking forward to what is to come.
“We’re going to have a bit more downforce as well. Hopefully looking forward even to GEN4.5 where we’ll have semi-slicks or even slicks,” he revealed.
“As the simulations are suggesting, that it’s going to be faster than F2 around Monaco, so it’s a good 10-or-so-second leap from where we are now.
“And I think, as I said earlier about this being an easy car to drive fast, so there’s not a huge skill gap, I’m looking forward to a car that’s going to be a f***ing handful.
“Because I think it’s going to really show the level of driver here is, as I always say, consistently across the board probably stronger than F1.
“Everyone who’s here deserves to be here…overall pretty much all of us deserve to be here. And they’re some of the best drivers in the world, so I think it’ll still be close.
“But I think there’ll be those times at a tricky track… I mean we might not be able to race in Tokyo, for example, which is too small – we’ll have to change the layout – but I think tricky tracks like that with the four-wheel drive, that much power and a bigger car moving around, I think it’s going to sort the men from the boys.”
READ MORE – Formula E unveils groundbreaking ‘trailblazer’ GEN4 car
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