(Bloomberg) — It’s not a good sign for Formula E that the car buffs at a Brooklyn “cars and coffee” meetup the morning of the New York City E-Prix had no idea the race was happening, just a few miles away in the same borough.
Several thousand fans who did attend Day 1 of the two-day New York City E-Prix on July 16 cheered as the electric version of Formula One cars whizzed past them. But, perhaps in part because of the oppressively muggy weather, the racing generated less excitement than the high-stakes cycling criteriums often held at the same cruise terminal. A DJ with a thick Long Island accent worked hard on the PA to amp the crowd. “Come on New Yawk, I caaaan’t hehr youuuuuu!”
The anticlimactic vibe peaked when organizers abruptly decided to end the July 16 race after a summer shower triggered a pile-up and rain delay with 10 minutes to go before the end. Fans had already started leaving the stadium, anyway. Final results were taken from the lap prior to the stoppage, giving Nick Cassidy of Envision Racing his first win. Lucas di Grassi and Robin Frijns, of Rokit Venturi Racing and Envision Racing, respectively, placed second and third.
On day two of the event on July 17, Antonio Felix da Costa won for his team, DS Techeetah. Stoffel Vandoorne (Mercedes EQ Formula E Team) took second and Mitch Evans (Jaguar TCS Racing) took third. Twenty-two drivers are running the 2021/2022 Formula E season, driving for 11 teams with names like Avalanche Andretti Formula E; Dragon/Penske Autosport; Nio 333 Formula E Team; and Tag Heuer Porsche Formula E Team, among others.
Don’t feel bad if your eyes glazed over reading that list or if some of those names are unfamiliar to you. Eight years into its existence, Formula E is still struggling to gain a foothold with audiences in the US. And at this point, America seems rather beside the point.
“We are happy to be racing all over the world,” Michael Andretti told a handful of journalists who attended a panel hosted by Bloomberg Green on July 15. Andretti, son of Formula One, IndyCar, and Nascar champion Mario Andretti, is chief executive officer and chairman of Andretti Autosport, which is running a team in Formula E this year using a powertrain provided by BMW. “Do we have to have a race here [in the US] for us to be a part of it?” he asked. “No.”
Team Rotation
It’s not like the series, which sees battery-powered cars that look like they’re straight out of a video game compete in 45-minute races on tracks from Montreal to Monaco to Mexico City, hasn’t seen growth. In January, Maserati confirmed it would join the series; in May, McLaren and German outfit ABT Sportsline did, too. Jaguar remains committed to next year as well, as do Nissan, Nio, Porsche, and Mahindra. The series provides a valuable arena for testing and promoting electric technology, proponents say.
“We are seeing a seismic shift in electrification in the motor industry, and Formula E is playing a big role in allowing automakers the freedom to test that tech out on the track,” Ian James, team principal of the Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team, said on the Bloomberg panel.
“Formula E is a microcosm of what we see in the marketplace,” said Asaf Nagler, vice president of external affairs at ABB for e-Mobility North America. “The interplay is clear.”
In 2021, Formula E television audiences rose to 316 million total viewers for the season, according to organizers. The biggest gain was in Germany, where TV audiences rose 338% over the previous season; in Brazil, the audience grew 286%; in England, it rose 156%.
In America, where the New York E-Prix and other races were broadcast on CBS, audiences grew just 25% year-over-year. A representative from CBS was unable to provide audience numbers by the time of this story’s publication, but even the highest growth represents a fraction of the 1 million-plus viewers Formula One draws every Sunday during the season in the US alone.
Ticket sales are another matter. Actual ticket sales for the 2022 race in Brooklyn reached 7,500, according to Formula E CEO Jamie Reigle, a number he characterized as “sold out.” In a follow-up email, a Formula E spokesperson said the series saw 14,000 “attendees” across two days of racing this year in Red Hook, including guests with free passes. That’s down from 20,000 during the inaugural event in 2017. (By comparison, more than 240,000 tickets were sold at the F1 Miami Grand Prix.) The spokesperson was unable to provide a specific average number of ticket sales per race anywhere in the world. Formula E turned a profit for the first time in 2019, but did not clear that hurdle in 2020. A Formula E spokesperson was unable to specify whether or not the series had been profitable since 2019.
The numbers haven’t done much to convince the world’s most cutting-edge automakers to stay involved. In 2020, Audi announced it would not be returning. Later that year, BMW quit, too. In August 2021, Mercedes announced it would leave after the current season. With the rise of new rules in Formula One welcoming more electric technology implemented in the engines and F1’s burgeoning audiences, the smaller series had lost its usefulness.
“Formula E has been a good driver for proving our expertise and establishing our Mercedes-EQ brand, but in the future we will keep pushing technological progress—especially on the electric drive side—focusing on Formula One,” Markus Schäfer, member of the board of management of Daimler AG and Mercedes-Benz AG, said in the 2021 press statement about the departure. F1 was developed for automakers to test new engineering and technologies they would eventually use in customer vehicles; the same holds true today, with developments like paddle shifting, hybrid technologies, carbon fiber components, adaptive suspensions, and even control buttons located on the steering wheel directly descended from F1 cars. “F1 offers rich potential for technology transfer,” Schäfer said.
Porsche has remained tight-lipped about its longer-term plans for Formula E involvement, even though it currently fields a team with partner Tag Heuer and for the next two years will provide vehicles for Andretti’s team. But recent announcements that it will participate in Formula One and other prestigious races—and will re-assign to other series at least one driver currently racing in Formula E—indicate its attention to the all-electric series may be waning.
“Specific driver roles [have] not been finalized,” Tom Moore, Porsche’s consultant for Motorsport PR, said in an email. “More will be known as 2023 race schedules for all series come out…in early December.”
Reigle described the loss of interest from some automakers as a “very significant blow.”
Identity Crises
Uncertainty about just what Formula E should be in the US has undoubtedly stymied efforts for growth stateside.
“Is it a sport, or is it an event, entertainment?” asked Mercedes racing’s James.
Dirk Kesselgruber, president of GKN Automotive, which provides software for Jaguar TCS Racing, described Formula E as more an exercise in technology and engineering than a sport.
“We are geeks,” he said over breakfast on July 15, noting that he is not, in general, a motorsport fan. “For us, it’s about developing technology. The race is kind of besides the point.”
In the meantime the future of the New York race is in limbo. When Formula E released the schedule for the 2023 season, the city was not listed. It doesn’t help appearances that seemingly little effort went into promoting the New York event; almost no signage from title sponsors like DHL and ABB was anywhere to be seen in nearby neighborhoods from Williamsburg and Greenpoint to Carroll Gardens and Red Hook. Let alone anywhere in Manhattan. A representative from DHL said the company is proud of the partnership with Formula E and stands firmly behind it. “We would typically not run advertising in every host city ahead of a race, because this is handled by Formula E themselves and/or a local promoter,” Daniel McGrath, a DHL spokesperson, said in an email. “We did, however, promote our support for the race on our dedicated social channels—we have a dedicated DHL Motor Sports channel on Twitter, for example—including a competition to win a ticket to the race.”
Several dates for next season were left with “TBD” for locations, but Reigle didn’t seem especially optimistic about a race in Red Hook. In a conversation at the track on July 15, he cited ongoing constriction in Brooklyn that constricts logistics for the race. He also cited the expense.
“New York is expensive; it’s expensive to do things here,” he said. “We will see what the future brings.”
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.
