Mahindra Racing as announced its first ever customer racing programme as Formula E’s Gen2 era is coming to a close. The only Indian team racing in the all-electric racing series has announced that it will be supplying its soon-to-be-launched powertrain to ABT Sportsline Formula E team in the Gen3 era of the sport, which kickstarts from the 2023 season.
Dilbagh Gill, CEO and Team Principal of Mahindra Racing with Thomas Biermaier, CEO at ABT Sportsline.
The 2023 Formula E season will see the arrival of Gen3 Formula E race cars, which are a big step forward in terms of technology. Formula E teams will race identical-looking Gen3 machines, with manufacturers developing the electric drivetrain that can then be made available for privateer teams. Subsequently, Mahindra Racing will be providing a pair of Gen3 cars to ABT Sportsline for the championship winning team’s return to the series, and the electric race cars are due to arrive in the team’s facilities in Kempten in October. In the meantime, ABT engineers are working with the Banbury-based team on software, set-up and simulation, and will be joining for test days.
Mahindra Racing has been a part of the Formula E grid ever since its inception almost 8 years ago.
Upon announcing the partnership, Dilbagh Gill, CEO and Team Principal of Mahindra Racing said, “ABT Sportsline is one of the top-level race outfits in the world and we’ve long-enjoyed racing competitively against them. It’s an honour to be able to take our powertrain, developed in partnership with ZF, and support the team in its return to the FIA ABB Formula E World Championship.”
Thomas Biermaier, CEO of ABT Sportsline said, “As a customer team, we also want to bring our experience from seven years of Formula E with over 80 races and over a decade of electric mobility at ABT Sportsline to the partnership. We are looking forward to this new Allgäu-India connection and are grateful that Mahindra Racing and its partners are supporting us in our comeback in Formula E.”
At the end of the Gen2 era on August 14, 2022, Formula E will have hosted 100 races, and Mahindra Racing has been a part of the sport ever since its inception almost 8 years ago. Mahindra Racing will join Porsche and Nissan in providing powertrains to Formula E’s privateer teams from next season, with Porsche supporting Andretti and Nissan working with McLaren. Formula E will also be racing in India next year, on a street track in Hyderabad.
Formula E will race in India on a street circuit in Hyderabad in 2023.
As for the Gen3 era, the all-electric race cars will be the first ever Formula cars to have an all-wheel drive powertrain. The new front powertrain will add 250kW to the 350kW at the rear, more than doubling the regenerative capability of the current Gen2 car to a total of 600kW. Max power of the cars is rated at 470 bhp (350kW), which is almost 135 bhp (100kW) more than the outgoing cars. The Gen3 cars will also be 60 kgs lighter than Gen2, and will feature 600kW ultra-high-speed charging capabilities for additional energy within the race, which is almost double the energy of the most advanced commercial chargers in the world.
