For Porsche, one of the most successful brands in motorsports history, it can be hard to stay humble. In recognition of their new effort, Porsche has created a video to remind everyone that new circumstances require starting anew, not resting on their laurels and past successes. This eighty-eight second video below doesn’t tell much about the program, and hints that the brand has a lot to learn about Formula E. With just fifteen days of testing allowed before the start of the 2019-2020 season, they certainly have a lot to learn in a very short span of time.
https://youtu.be/QC1x4uFZGGU
Testing in Spain
Porsche’s Formula E car first took to the track in March for the first of 15 days of pre-season testing, and returned to the track in Spain for three days of additional testing with Brendon Hartley and Neel Jani. As we noted in our previous feature on the new car, the Porsche will share its Spark chassis with the other cars on the grid. Powertrain technology is proprietary to each team, and must not exceed 250kW plus a 10% overboost mode. Batteries must last the duration of an entire 45 minute plus-one-lap race.
While Jani felt confident following today’s tests, Porsche is remaining justifiably coy about how their car is performing. While we may not know lap times, or how the batteries are working, we can say with some certainty that the black carbon racer looks positively mean on track. This is what Jani, Brendon Hartley, Amiel Lindesay, and Malte Huneke had to say on the day’s progress:
Neel Jani (Porsche works driver, regular driver): “I feel the tests with the Porsche Formula E car at Calafat were very positive. It is hugely important to get as many kilometres as possible under our belt during the test phase for our Formula E race car and, in doing so, to gain valuable experience – particularly from a technical point of view. They have been very productive days. I am now looking forward to working with the team over the coming months, as we strive to get the very best out of the Porsche Formula E race car.”
Brendon Hartley (Porsche works driver, test and development driver): “As a test and development driver, it’s my job to support the Porsche Formula E programme with preparations for Season 6 of Formula E. My main focus has been on the simulation work in Weissach. Testing the car on track has been both an enjoyable and challenging experience. It is, of course, enjoyable to drive the car, however, contributing and working with the talented group of people at Porsche on this project is also a real pleasure.”
Amiel Lindesay (Team Manager): “We are very happy with the Porsche Formula E tests at Calafat. We completed an extensive test programme and have laid the foundations for the coming months. The data generated will form a good basis. We will now analyse it in detail to be able to prepare as well as possible for the coming test work.”
Malte Huneke (Technical Project Leader): “The findings from these tests will allow us to take a big step forward in the development of the Porsche powertrain. The primary focus in this phase of preparations is on reliability, before we then concentrate on performance at a later date. We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but development is completely on track.“
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