“I have to say this is the most motivated I’ve felt at a pre-season test, because I hate testing to be honest.”
Dan Ticktum’s candour and frankness during a motorsport career that counts two Macau Grand Prix victories has won him many fans as well as alienating plenty of others. That hasn't changed over the last three seasons in the Formula E world championship.
Despite the opening round of the 2024-25 season in Sao Paulo being less than two weeks away, Ticktum has yet to be officially confirmed for the upcoming campaign. But, having taken part in pre-season testing earlier this month in Spain, behind the scenes his spot on the grid is all but assured bar an imminent public announcement.
The 25-year-old’s comment during four days of testing at the Jarama Circuit is in stark contrast to the beginning of the previous campaign, having told Autosport at the time that he would have to “try and smile and get through” the season with what has been rebranded from the Electric Racing Technologies (ERT) team.
His words proved prophetic, as Ticktum registered only one finish in the points. The outlier, fourth in Misano, was the product of a unique energy-saving strategy which also secured a career-best result in his three years of the all-electric championship. His team-mate Sergio Sette Camara fared little better, the Brazilian's sixth place at Misano the best of just three points finishes across the 16-race campaign.
Their combined tally of 23 points put ERT firmly last in the teams’ championship, some 24 points adrift of Mahindra ahead of them in the pecking order, following a season with practically no development due to strained finances and locked homologation. But fast-forward several months and there’s a very different atmosphere in the newly renamed Kiro Race Co team, courtesy of new funding which has come from American investment firm, The Forest Road Company.
“There was ongoing interest in the last year or two and there were some other choices on the table earlier, but we kind of waited a little bit to make sure we picked the right one and I'm quite sure this is the right one,” team principal Alex Hui tells Autosport. “Our shareholders are committed for the long-term growth of the championship, so it's not only the next few years, I would say for a very long time.”
Kiro Race Co will compete under an American licence this season, and while no specifics have been made public regarding funding, Hui is adamant Forest Road has secured its future – something not always guaranteed in its multiple previous guises.
The genesis of the team has been part of Formula E since the championship’s inception in 2014. It began life as China Racing but even as early as that maiden campaign underwent a mid-season rebrand as finances remained precarious. Known as NEXTEV, the team would guide Nelson Piquet Jr to the very first Formula E drivers’ title by just a single point in what remains the squad's high point.
Hui suggests that “there's zero pressure from Porsche” to put Beckmann in the car despite the ex-F2 racer being a reserve driver for the German manufacturer
Chinese car manufacturer NIO bought into the team by 2017 and it morphed into NIO 333 after a buyout from Chinese Touring Car Championship promoter, LiSheng Racing. Its latest reboot last term, becoming ERT, only lasted a single season.
Aside from that inaugural season with Piquet Jr, its first decade in the championship run under a Chinese licence has seen limited success. During the following nine seasons, Oliver Turvey's run to second in the 2018 Mexico City E-Prix has been the team's only other podium, while it has only finished inside the top 10 in the teams’ standings just once over the last six seasons.
This in part has been largely due to the team developing and running its own powertrain, save for the very first year of the championship where a standard unit was supplied to all squads. But new ownership has coincided with a change in this philosophy, which could transform its competitive standing.
For the next two seasons, Kiro will become a customer team and run Porsche’s powertrain. A proven race-winning package during the previous Gen3 era, it guided Jake Dennis for fellow customer team Andretti and Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein to back-to-back drivers’ titles in the past two seasons. Rebadged as the 99X Electric WCG3, the unit has been updated and brought in line with the changes for the Gen3 Evo regulations introduced for this upcoming season, but Hui is keen to stress that the Porsche package will remain a competitive package against renewed competition.
“Because we're not obligated to be a manufacturer, there’s no conflict of interest of having a Porsche powertrain with one of our sponsors, so it’s something that just makes sense,” says Hui. “It's a very competitive package, the difference between last season and this season, it is very similar I would say. I would say it's close to the same thing.
“It was a benchmark less than five months ago in London, so I think we have full confidence of the package.”
Moving across to a new powertrain has brought its own unique problems, though, not least getting used to new settings and a way of working for the teams and drivers that it has not experienced before. Mastering this particular area was a key focus during pre-season testing, with the team having only done a shakedown prior to the official running.
“New software, different systems, different way of braking, all sorts of things are very different,” explains Ticktum. “I have to say, the terminology they use is all completely different as well, like the units are different for energy, it's all completely different. Mental-capacity-wise, I'm pretty good at those things normally, which is very helpful in this category.”
With a new almost neon-yellow livery which made it stand apart in the paddock, the Kiro machine turned heads for another reason during pre-season testing with its pace. The usual caveats of testing apply, especially in Formula E with the 350kW mode affording more energy, while the new, softer compound of Hankook tyre offers a significant performance advantage when new.
Even so, Ticktum set the second fastest time for the entirety of testing, while David Beckmann in the second car posted the quickest time during one of the six sessions. Like Ticktum, Beckmann’s place for the upcoming season has not been confirmed either just yet but Hui suggests that “there's zero pressure from Porsche” to put Beckmann in the car despite the ex-F2 racer being a reserve driver for the German manufacturer.
While Beckmann would be joining the grid almost as a rookie, having made just two stand-in performances for Andretti during 2023 in Jakarta, retaining Ticktum will be crucial given the technical changes, both with the new powertrain and wider Formula E regulations.
On the brink of his fourth season in the championship, Ticktum has struggled to showcase why he was once on Red Bull’s books - and considered a possible candidate for an F1 race seat in 2019 but for his lack of superlicence points - primarily due to lacklustre packages, first with NIO 333 and then ERT. But armed with a Porsche powertrain and greater investment behind the scenes, he might finally be able to showcase his talent at the wheel of an electric car.
As Ticktum says: “I haven't drawn any specific goals yet, but we're going to be in a lot of a better place than we were last year.”
