DS Techeetah has uncertain Formula E future and seeks investor

DS Techeetah had a good preseason at Valencia at the end of 2021, preparing for the Formula E season which kicks off in January. However, some of the challenges the team will face in 2022 are not exactly on the tracks, but outside of them. Reports of salary delays have been known to the team since 2020, and a new investor will be needed if the winning team – three-time category champions – is to continue their trajectory in the sport.

According to information from the portal The Race, the first rumors that the salaries of important people in the team were late emerged in 2020, following six Formula E races in Berlin to close the championship. At the time, the absence of any media meant the story had not been investigated.

However, from July 2021, more precisely at the New York stadium, it was possible to see a new face in the Techeetah paddock: Anthony Di Iorio, billionaire entrepreneur in the field of blockchain technology, introduced himself as the new investor of the team. And the Canadian, in fact, showed immersion in the team: he visited the factory, met the employees, went to the stages of London and Berlin and even paid part of the bills of the team.

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However, at the end of August, everything went wrong. Di Iorio backed down and gave up investing in the team, which took the situation to extreme levels. To give you an idea, the two drivers of the team, António Félix da Costa and Jean-Éric Vergne – who were already Formula E champions in the Techeetah car – have been released to look for other teams for 2022. were already fixed, so the two had to stay in the team.

Then, salvation appeared: DS, a branch of Citroën which has already had a closed technical partnership with Techeetah since 2018, took over the team’s operations for the year 2022. But there is a problem, again according to The Race: the French automaker will only make it stay in the team for the following year on one condition – precisely the entry of a new investor, as would be the case with Di Iorio.

As if all the upheavals experienced by the team were not enough, a heavy loss fell on Techeetah in September 2021. Pascal Tortosa, Vergne’s engineer and considered a “mad genius” within the team. his acquaintances, died. Director of DS Performance and now Director of Techeetah, Thomas Chevaucher explained the importance of Tortosa to the team.

“I’d say the biggest difference isn’t between me and Mark [Preston, ex-chefe da equipe mas que se ausentou do cargo para ser CEO], but the felt lack of Pascal [Tortosa]He told the vehicle. “It really is the big difference. I mean, the rest stays the same.

Preston, meanwhile, is stepping down as team leader and taking over as CEO – and he’ll have a tough first assignment. Mark will have to find, with the commercial director Keith Smout, the necessary investment for DS Techeetah to be able to develop its third generation car. It should be noted that 2022 will be the last year for Gen2 cars, which will be replaced by Gen3 from next year.

“The reason we’ve changed is because we want to keep the strong team structure that we have, and it’s been that way since the start of the second generation,” said Chevaucher, Techeetah boss. “And that’s why we organize it in such a way that a lot of people think that there is a radical change, but in fact there is not,” he stressed.

“We just think that Mark [Preston] is the best person to find a solution and do it [a equipe] last longer, ”he said. “That’s why we wanted to give it its full potential, to give it more time to focus on this,” he said.

The team’s sports manager and reserve driver, James Rossiter has described 2021 as a “failure” for the team, but believes that after their first bad year, the team must come back stronger to compete. Techeetah finished the 2021 season in third place among constructors, with Da Costa eighth and Vergne tenth in the drivers’ championship.

“We learned a lot last year from our failure to lose the championship and after all the hardships we had to go through,” he said. “A lot of character-shaping things have happened, and ultimately coming out of it makes me think we’re a much stronger and better prepared team,” he said.

“Both drivers seem, from my perspective, to be working a lot harder and are a lot more focused and motivated to regain the titles they already had,” he recalls. “So it’s going to be a pretty interesting playoff series. I think we are much stronger after the failures of 2021, “he explained.

Regardless, the fate of the third generation of Techeetah will be known in late January, as will DS’s decision whether or not to pursue the deal with the team. The partnership between the companies is the most successful in Formula E history: Techeetah was season 4 champion with Vergne, but without the backing of DS, who entered the following year. There were two more titles – the second for the Frenchman and that of Félix da Costa – over the next two years, making the team the only team to have won the championship more than once.

The first round of the 2022 Formula E season is scheduled in Saudi Arabia at the Diriyah ePrix, with the double round taking place on January 28-29.

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