Formula E Season 5

With its first race just four short years ago in 2014, Formula E has become the go-to championship for budding manufacturers to make a name for themselves in the world of electric racing.

- Jonathan Musk

The fifth season of Formula E is nearly upon us, starting this December, but where has the championship come from and, perhaps more importantly, where is it headed?

Formula E can trace its origins back to 2010 when a group of people decided that an electric racing formula was needed to act as flagship for the electric vehicle movement. Renault had a big part to play in this, with the original impetus from the French company and its soon to be four road going electric car line-up of Zoe, Twizy, Fluence Z.E. and Kangoo Z.E. But in the early days of the motorsport, things were very much a collaborative effort.

Dallara won the contract to build the chassis, McLaren was chosen for some of the power electronics and the battery was… well a disaster. The original tender was won by a company that shall remain unnamed, but late in the development cycle it decided the challenge was too great and that the task of creating a suitable battery pack simply couldn’t be done.

The Championship’s fate looked as though it would be over before it had even rolled a single wheel in anger around a circuit. However, Williams Advanced Engineering - perhaps on a high after successful collaboration with Jaguar on the C-X75 hyper car project, felt up to the task and stepped in at the proverbial, and literal, last minute.

The company was given the chassis dimensions that could not be altered and Dallara had conveniently left a large rectangular hole at the back end that would allow for the battery installation. Precision was key, as the battery not only had to fit within the space without any major modification to the chassis that might have otherwise compromised its integrity. As we all know, WAE managed to complete the challenge and in the nick of time too. The battery was sorted but only weeks before the first race of the season was due.