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Pierre Gasly believes his Scuderia AlphaTauri team have paid the price for inconsistency during the opening half of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season, which has seen the team slip to eighth place in the Constructors’ standings.

After a super 2021 season for the Faenza-based team that saw them finish sixth in the Constructors’ Championship, hopes were high they could kick on this season and maybe challenge for the top five.

But it has not materialised the way they had hoped, and the team have failed to score points in any of the past five Grand Prix, with Gasly’s fifth place in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix the last time that either he or team-mate Yuki Tsunoda broke into the top ten.

The midfield battle in 2022 appears to be tighter than ever, and unlike in recent years, there are no teams that are at the back of the pack, such as Williams Racing or the Haas F1 Team, both of whom have improved their race pace this season.

And Gasly says it is this and the lack of consistency shown by AlphaTauri that has seen them slip so far back in the championship, the team having scored fifty-seven points less in the opening thirteen races of this season compared to at the same point last year.

Daniel Ticktum hopes to remain in the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship next year after admitting he enjoyed the series more than he was expecting to in season eight.

Despite racing with the NIO 333 FE Team that struggled to fight for regular top ten finishes, Ticktum still had his moments, scoring his one and only point of the year in Rome and making it into the Qualifying duels for the first time in Seoul.

Admittedly, Ticktum says he would have preferred to be in a car that was capable of battling for points every weekend, but it was an enjoyable season for the Briton, and he hopes he can find himself back on the grid in season nine.

“I’ve enjoyed the championship more than I thought I would, I like the tracks, the events, everything like that,” said Ticktum to Motorsport.com.

“The car itself been better to drive than I expected in terms of just the Gen2 Formula E car but I mean, I’ve got to be brutally honest, I haven’t enjoyed where the team has been this year.

Florian Modlinger, the Director Factory of the Tag Heuer Porsche FE Team’s Formula E Motorsport department, says season eight was a rollercoaster for the team, and they will need to find more consistency in season nine if they are to contend for the championships.

It looked as though Porsche had found themselves a strong car early on in season eight, with Pascal Wehrlein leading home André Lotterer in a one-two finish in the Mexico City E-Prix in commanding fashion.

However, that was as good as it got for Porsche, with Wehrlein ending tenth in the Drivers’ Championship and Lotterer – in his final year with the team – twelfth, while the team finished only seventh in the Teams’ Championship, one hundred and eighty-five points behind the champion Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team.

Modlinger says the team will be working hard to solve the weaknesses they faced throughout season eight ahead of season nine, which will be the first year of the Gen3 cars, if they want to contend at the front of the field in every event.

“This last race in Seoul was definitely not our day,” said Modlinger after both drivers retired from the final race of the season in South Korea.  “Both of our drivers became entangled in other competitors’ accidents and were thrown out of contention.  After just a couple of laps, Pascal had fought his way into the top 10. He was certainly on track for something more.

André Lotterer has thanked the Tag Heuer Porsche FE Team for their efforts during his three years with the outfit as he leaves the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship after the end of the 2021-22 season.

Despite failing to take a victory in his time in the championship – he took second place on four occasions – Lotterer felt it was ‘three great years’ with Porsche, although the end of his final season was not the way he would have wanted to depart.

Lotterer believes Porsche have deserved more successes than they achieved since they joined the grid in 2019 – they have only one victory in that time courtesy of Pascal Wehrlein in the Mexico E-Prix in 2022 – but there were too many lows amongst the highs.

“I’d like to thank the team and Porsche for three great years,” said Lotterer.  “During this time, we experienced many highs and lows together.

“We’d hoped for more successes and we surely deserved them. This year began well for us. Our one-two in Mexico was a big highlight. But the second half of the season turned gnarly, and Seoul wasn’t how I’d imagined my farewell either.

Mahindra Racing can look fondly back at the first one hundred races of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, but Dilbagh Gill knows more history will be made in the next one hundred races.

The team took their first podium finish of season eight in the penultimate round of the year in Seoul last Saturday as Oliver Rowland took second place, and they ended the final year of Gen2 regulations with eighth place in the Teams’ Championship.  Sunday’s second race in South Korea was also the one hundredth in the history of Formula E.

Mahindra have been an ever-present in Formula E since its inception and have taken five victories in the championship, three for current NTT IndyCar Series star Felix Rosenqvist and one each for Jerome D’Ambrosio and Alex Lynn.

They have also fielded Bruno Senna, Karun Chandhok, Nick Heidfeld, Pascal Wehrlein and Alexander Sims across the opening eight seasons, and will run with Rowland and Brazilian Lucas di Grassi in season nine.

Gill, the Team Principal of the Banbury-based outfit, says there is a lot to be proud of in the opening hundred races of Formula E, but having committed to the Gen3 era which begins next January in Mexico City, he insists there is still history to be made by Mahindra within the all-electric championship.

Alexander Sims waved goodbye to Mahindra Racing and the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship after last weekend’s Seoul E-Prix, although it was not the weekend he was hoping.

The thirty-four-year-old leaves the championship having made fifty-five starts, with one win, three podiums and three pole positions to his name.  Sims will leave Formula E to return to endurance racing, with the British racer being replaced in the Mahindra team by Brazilian racer Lucas di Grassi. 

Sims retired from the opening race in South Korea after crashing out having already been involved in a collision with Antonio Giovinazzi, while multiple penalties for component changes left him at the back for race two, although he was able to fight through to twelfth at the chequered flag.

He ultimately finished a lowly seventeenth in the final standings with just two top-ten finishes to his name across his final season in Formula E, with his last points finish coming in New York City where he finished fourth.

“It wasn’t the way I hoped my final race weekend with the team would go but I would like to thank everyone I have worked with in the last two years – my engineers and crew have worked incredibly hard and are people I’ll consider friends for life,” said Sims.

On 10 March, the fifteenth day of Ukrainian defence from Russian invasion, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave thirteen service members the Hero of Ukraine, the highest possible title in the country with military personnel receiving the Order of the Gold Star. Among those honoured was Lieutenant Colonel Viacheslav Ponomarenko, who was competing in rally raid events before serving on the frontlines.

He was involved in the battle for Hostomel, located in Kyiv Oblast near Ukraine’s capital and therefore a critical early target for Russia. Hostomel’s airport was attacked hours after the invasion began, and it was eventually captured the next day followed by the town itself in early March. Ukraine would launch counter-offensives in the region until Russian retreat a month later.

Ponomarenko led a group of defenders and successfully disabled twenty Russian BMP (“Boevaya Mashina Pehoty”, infantry fighting vehicle) units. Zelenskyy commended his actions in a 10 March address and explained that “thanks to his actions, a significant number of enemy’s equipment and soldiers in the city of Hostomel were destroyed.”

“President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine to Lt. Col. Viacheslav Ponomarenko for his personal courage and heroism shown in the defence of the state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, and loyalty to the military oath,” reads a 9 June statement from the Federation Automobile de l’Ukraine (FAU), an FIA member club who sanctions races in the country.

“Under the leadership of Lt. Col. Viacheslav Ponomarenko, a combined special-purpose group in the suburbs of Kyiv—Hostomel—destroyed twenty BMP units of the occupiers’ armed forces along with their personnel and stopped the further advance of the enemy in the direction of Kyiv.

The ramifications of Johan Kristoffersson‘s crash with Carlos Sainz in the first Island X Prix in July have dropped him and Rosberg X Racing off the podium entirely. On Friday, a month after the race, Extreme E‘s sanctioning body Automobile Club de Monaco (ACM) announced that after appeal from Sainz’s ACCIONA | Sainz XE Team, the results for the race have been revised to penalise RXR by relegating them to fifth and last in the Final.

RXR dominated the Island X Prix doubleheader by winning both races, but the first race’s Final began with contact between Kristoffersson and Sainz as they merged from the multi-lane sector that greeted drivers as they began their lap. Sainz rolled over multiple times, and was taken to hospital before being cleared in time for the second race. Officials subsequently demoted RXR from first to third by imposing a thirty-second time penalty which boosted Chip Ganassi Racing to the top step of the podium.

However, ACCIONA | Sainz still found the ruling too light and Sainz described it as “one of the most serious actions that I have ever seen without an exemplary penalty”, prompting the outfit to petition for a right to review under Article 14 of the International Sporting Code.

The appeal was approved and a hearing was launched on 3 August. Nine days later, the series ruled Kristoffersson fully accountable for the wreck, citing precedent, under Article 2.d, Chapter IV, Appendix L of the ISC regarding driver overtaking: “Causing a collision, repetition of serious mistakes or the appearance of a lack of control over the car (such as leaving the track) will be reported to the Stewards and may entail the imposition of penalties up to and including the exclusion of any driver concerned.”

Under the new decision, RXR further fell to fifth in the final classification for the round. This bumped ACCIONA | Sainz up to fourth despite failing to finish, while the original fourth-place team JBXE improves to third. This also reallocates points with RXR now earning ten points for the race instead of fifteen, ACCIONA | Sainz getting twelve over ten, and JBXE with fifteen. RXR remains atop the standings courtesy of their two wins and still garnering points for reaching the Final, while ACCIONA | Sainz leapfrogs X44 for third and JBXE moves past McLaren XE for seventh.

Whilst pleased with the improved performance during the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season, Frédéric Vasseur feels his Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN outfit have left points on the table, mainly down to reliability issues with its C42-Ferrari.

Alfa Romeo are fielding an all-new line-up in 2022 with Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu having replaced Kimi Räikkönen and Antonio Giovinazzi, and they currently sit sixth in the Constructors’ Championship heading into the final nine races of the season with fifty-one points, a significant improvement on what they were able to achieve across the past two campaigns.

However, only twice throughout the season have they scored points with both cars in the same race, and it has now been four races since either Bottas or Zhou broke into the top ten on race day.

Bottas has retired three times due to mechanical issues so far this season in Saudi Arabia, Great Britain and Hungary, while Zhou has failed to see the chequered flag on five occasions, the most recent being the French Grand Prix.

Vasseur, the Team Principal at Alfa Romeo, says it is a shame that the team have not scored more points than they have as they feel they should be involved in the battle for fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship with the McLaren F1 Team and BWT Alpine F1 Team.

The season failed to end how DS Techeetah would’ve hoped, after they missed out on the Constructors’ Championship and finished third in the standings. Jean-Éric Vergne‘s sixth-place finish and António Félix Da Costa‘s tenth-place finish weren’t enough to move the team any higher, but at least secured them the bottom step of the championship rostrum.

Da Costa claimed the final pole of the Gen2 era of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, but failed to finished near the front after being forced almost into the barrier by Jake Dennis. In Dennis’ defence, he was given no room by the Portuguese driver, who is joining the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team next season.

Vergne could only manage sixth in the season finale in Seoul, after struggling for race pace throughout the E-Prix. It sums up a frustrating end to the season for the Frenchman, who ended up finishing fourth in the Drivers’ Championship.

Thomas Chevaucher, DS Performance Director and DS TECHEETAH Team Principal was grateful for the “huge work” done by the entire team, as they set their focus to Season Nine.

“As promised, we gave it all until the last race but this season in Formula E was once again really tight. Thanks to the huge work of all the team and to our performing DS E-TENSE FE21 we end after all on the Teams’ Championship podium. After 7 podiums this season, we are keeping DS Automobiles among the leader of the championship and I’m proud of it. Now it’s already time to focus on season 9 with new goals of wins and victory.”

Season Eight of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship couldn’t have arguably ended any worse for Jean-Éric Vergne, who saw his title hopes disintegrate after horrific luck.

The Frenchman ended the season fourth in the Drivers’ Championship, after an okay sixth-place finish at the Seoul E-Prix season finale. Vergne’s title hopes were effectively over after the London E-Prix, where he had failed to score a single point. Vergne did well to finish sixth at Seoul, after dropping some places early on. Race pace was clearly an issue for DS Techeetah, after team-mate António Félix Da Costa also struggled for performance during the final race of the season.

Vergne is hoping to come back stronger when Gen3 kicks-off in 2023, after missing a “couple of opportunities”.

“Today’s race was quite bad at the start because there was a crash between Di Grassi and Gunther and I lost some positions so I had to make them back. I started 8th, finished 6th.  I did not have the pace to come back much more than this. Obviously, we wanted more this year, I missed a couple of opportunities with 4 bad races but it’s motorsport, it’s unpredictable. Now we have a lot of work to do for the next generation of cars to be the best next year and come back stronger to win the championship.”

“Our story is that we were champions” – António Félix Da Costa

Da Costa ended his journey with DS Techeetah with a tenth-place finish in South Korea, but did manage to claim pole position for the E-Prix. Da Costa. who is joining TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team next season, battled hard early on to keep hold of the lead. The Portuguese dropped to third before suddenly falling all the way to the foot of the points.

Sacha Fenestraz stayed out of trouble and performed strongly during Sunday’s 2021-22 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship season finale despite only being called up to drive by the Dragon/Penske Autosport team at 6:30am on the morning of the race.

With Antonio Giovinazzi ruled out of the race after the Italian injured his thumb during Saturday’s opening race in Seoul, Dragon needed a replacement driver to race alongside Sérgio Sette Câmara, and they called upon Jaguar TCS Racing’s Fenestraz.

Fenestraz became the second reserve driver from Jaguar’s pool of drivers to take to the track in South Korea after Norman Nato was drafted in to replace the injured Sam Bird, and the French-Argentine driver put up a good showing despite very limited track time in a Formula E car and with no previous knowledge of the Seoul track.

“Honestly, they called me at 6:30am and were like, ‘come quickly’ and I was still like opening my eyes!” Fenestraz is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com. “It was a tricky one, I was racing in Japan last weekend so I didn’t manage to do any simulator work before the race.

“Everything was just in a rush. But about today, it was good. We couldn’t expect much as everyone raced yesterday, and I didn’t drive a Formula E car in a very, very long time apart from the Gen3 shakedown – but shakedowns are generally very few laps and you’re not pushing.

Jerome D’Ambrosio says Edoardo Mortara winning race two of the Seoul E-Prix weekend was a fantastic way to end the 2021-22 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship season, but there is a bittersweet feeling within the team that could have seen them achieve so much more.

Mortara took his fourth victory of the season in commanding fashion on Sunday after an early pass on António Félix da Costa gave him the lead, the result confirming his postition of third place in the Drivers’ Championship.

However, D’Ambrosio reckons the team gave away too many points across the season both with Mortara and team-mate Lucas di Grassi, meaning they were unable to take home either the Drivers or the Teams’ championships. Mortara, in particularly, scored only three points across the five races between his win in Marrakesh at the beginning of July and his season-closing win in South Korea.

Venturi ended the year second in the Teams’ championship, twenty-four points shy of the Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team, and despite failing to win the titles, Team Principal D’Ambrosio says he is proud of what the team have achieved across the past couple of seasons before they transition into the Maserati Racing FE Team in season nine.

“A victory for Edo today is a fantastic way to end the season,” said D’Ambrosio.  “I think this result reflects the performance we have shown throughout the year but at the same time, there is a bittersweet feeling because it feels like we could have had more in the World Teams’ Championship.

Edoardo Mortara ended the 2021-22 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship season with victory in race two of the Seoul E-Prix, but the Swiss driver admits it was bittersweet after missing out on the Drivers’ title.

The ROKiT Venturi Racing driver took the lead early in Seoul and was in control thereafter until the chequered flag, going on to claim his fourth victory of the season.

However, failing to score points in either race of the London E-Prix nor the opening race in South Korea meant he lost the chance to fight for the title, ending the year third in the final standings behind Stoffel Vandoorne and Mitch Evans.

Mortara was pleased to end Formula E’s one hundredth race and the final Gen2 event with victory, but he knows they will have to step up and find more consistency next season if he is to finally take the Drivers’ title that has eluded him.

“I have mixed emotions but overall, it was a very positive day for me,” said Mortara. “The car felt strong from practice and after qualifying second, I knew that I would be in a very strong position for the race if I could take the lead.

James Barclay says the Jaguar TCS Racing team did everything they could to take Mitch Evans to the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship Drivers’ title during the Seoul E-Prix weekend, but it was just not enough.

The New Zealander took victory in the opening race of the weekend in South Korea but was only seventh in the second race, and with Stoffel Vandoorne finishing second on Sunday, it was the consistent Belgian who took the title.

Evans ultimately finished second in the final standings, thirty-three points adrift of Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team’s Vandoorne, while the team ended the year fourth in the Teams’ Championship.

Barclay, the Team Principal at Jaguar, says the team can still hold their heads up high after a good season that saw Evans take four race victories, including both races of the Rome E-Prix, and three further podiums amid the team’s highest points haul in Formula E.

“Today we gave everything to try and win the drivers’ title with Mitch but it was out of reach,” Barclay said on Sunday.  “We raced all the way into the points and put Stoffel Vandoorne and Mercedes under pressure which is what we set out to do in Seoul. Congratulations to them on their successes after a hard fought season.