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Edoardo Mortara took his second victory of the 2021-22 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship season after a hard-fought opening race of the Berlin E-Prix at the Tempelhof Airport Street Circuit on Saturday.

The ROKiT Venturi Racing driver started from pole position and controlled the race for much of the afternoon, only falling behind other drivers by being out of sync during the attack mode windows.  He also survived a late attack from Jean-Éric Vergne that failed to pay off to clinch the victory.

Mortara held onto the lead at the start ahead of Mahindra Racing’s Alexander Sims, with the Briton forced to defend from a fast-starting António Félix da Costa into turn one. 

Stoffel Vandoorne made a slow start from eighth on the grid to fall outside of the top ten, as did Nissan e.dams’ Sébastien Buemi, who fell to fifteenth having started tenth.

The lead pack soon began to shuffle around as they utilised their attack modes, with Mortara, Sims, DS Techeetah duo Vergne and Félix da Costa, and the Tag Heuer Porsche FE Team pairing of André Lotterer and Pascal Wehrlein pulling a small gap to the rest of the pack.

McLaren Racing will make their debut in the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship next season after agreeing a deal to take over the running of the Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team.

Having signed an option to join the third generation of Formula E at the beginning of 2021, the option has now been taken up, with the Woking based team adding a Formula E team alongside its FIA Formula 1 World Championship, Extreme E, NTT IndyCar Series and esports outfits.

Current Mercedes Team Principal Ian James will remain in the same role when the team switches over to McLaren ownership, but announcements on who will be the drivers, powertrain suppliers and other commercial partners will be come in the upcoming weeks and months.

“Today’s announcement confirms the next exciting chapter in the development of the team,” said James.  “Since our inception in 2019, performance, sustainability and adaptability have been the keys to our success.

“Mercedes-Benz have been the main enablers for this team so far and when we started this journey, we could only have hoped for the results we’ve achieved to date. The company’s clear objectives and technological expertise accelerated our ambitions, and I would like to thank them for being the most supportive owner by helping us to do what we do best: racing.

The Avalanche Andretti FE Team has announced that they will be powered by Porsche powertrains from the start of season nine, replacing BMW.

BMW withdrew their factory team at the end of season seven but allowed Andretti to continue to use their powertrains for an additional season, but new regulations for season nine – the first of the Gen 3 era of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship – meant it was impossible for this partnership to continue further.

Porsche committed themselves to the Gen 3 era and will now also provide powertrains to a customer team alongside their own Tag Heuer Porsche FE Team, much to the delight of Roger Griffiths, the Team Principal of Avalanche Andretti FE Team.

“Season 9 will be an important year for our team and the series,” said Griffiths. “It was vital that we made a strong choice in our powertrain provider in preparation for this new chapter and exciting generation of car – and we have that in Porsche. We are looking forward to starting Gen3 as a formidable competitor.

“We remain focused on the rest of this season, we continue our powertrain relationship with BMW, who have been a valued partner to our team and will support us until the end of this season. We’ve had many successes together through the years and thank them for both their partnership and friendship.”

Edoardo Mortara took his maiden ABB FIA Formula E World Championship pole position on Saturday as he denied surprise package Alexander Sims to take top spot for race one of the Berlin E-Prix.

In the previous fifty-one races of his Formula E career, Mortara had never started at the very front of the grid and had twice made the finals of the Qualifying duels this season only to miss out on pole position.

But a great final sector, coupled with a slow one for Sims, allowed the ROKiT Venturi Racing driver to finally take the pole position his form has deserved.

Sims was perhaps fortunate to be in the duels at all, let alone in the final, with Sébastien Buemi having a lap time deleted for a pit lane violation meaning the Mahindra Racing driver advanced rather than the Nissan e.dams driver, but after that, the Briton was superb.

The quarter finals saw him depose of Tag Heuer Porsche FE Team’s Pascal Wehrlein, the fastest driver of the initial group sessions, but the semi-final was a lot more controversial, with Sims and DS Techeetah’s Jean-Éric Vergne setting identical lap times.

Jack Doohan is set to receive his first-ever taste of Formula 1 machinery at the Losail International Circuit, Qatar. The Formula 2 driver will drive for the BWT Alpine F1 Team on the final day of their three-day test at the circuit, using the A521.

Doohan, who has been part of the Alpine Academy since January, has joined his Australian compatriot and Alpine Reserve Driver Oscar Piastri, who has also been taking part in the team’s test.

The nineteen-year-old joins Alpine in the Middle East on the back of a mixed start to his season, he lined up on pole at the season opener in Bahrain and recently stood on the podium in Imola.

Doohan is understandably excited to get to experience the thrill of being behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car.

“I’m super excited to drive a Formula 1 car for the first time. This is a moment that I’ve been building up to ever since I started racing karts, and I know these opportunities are extremely privileged. I’m very grateful to Alpine for the opportunity and I’m looking forward to giving it my best on the test day.

Will Power winning the pole at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course is like grass being green. While much of the hype for Friday’s NTT IndyCar Series qualifying for the GMR Grand Prix revolved around Conor Daly and Callum Ilott‘s impressive runs, Power walked away with his sixth pole on the road course.

Power’s time of 1:09.76 topped Álex Palou‘s 1:09.80. He previously won the IMS Road Course pole in 2015, 2017, 2018, and two of the three races in 2020, while he has five total IndyCar victories on the layout including the August date in 2021.

Palou was the lone non-Chevrolet driver in the Fast Six, a group that surprisingly contained Indiana native Daly. Daly qualified fourth behind the two mentioned and Josef Newgarden for his best run of the season and tied 2020 at Mid-Ohio for his strongest career road course qualifying effort. It is also Ed Carpenter Racing‘s second-best qualifying performance at the IMS GP after Rinus VeeKay‘s pole in the 2020 Harvest Grand Prix #1; VeeKay, the defending GMR GP winner, qualified fifteenth.

Pato O’Ward, who led Practice #2 earlier in the day, was fifth ahead of Felix Rosenqvist.

Ilott fell short of making the Fast Six, but he continued his strong weekend by qualifying seventh after being second in Thursday practice behind Palou. Trailing him by one spot was fellow rookie Christian Lundgaard.

Max Verstappen continued his run of winning every race he finishes in 2022, after taking his third victory of the season at the inaugural Miami Grand Prix. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr rounded off the podium, with the top-three all completing the race on a one-stop strategy.

Prior to the race, a two-stop strategy was predicted to be the fastest option in Miami, however, many of the top ten stretched out their first stint to enable a one-stop.

The majority of the drivers started the race on the yellow-walled Medium tyres, whereas a handful started on the white-walled Hards. Those who started on the hard compound extended their first-stint until the race’s only Safety Car occured, after Lando Norris and Pierre Gasly collided heavily late-on.

George Russell made the most of the opportunity to pit under the Safety Car, and was on fresher and faster tyres at the end of the race than those around him. This saw Russell finish in fifth-place having started from twelfth.

Pirelli’s Motorsport Director, Mario Isola was very impressed by how well the tyres held up on the newly-built circuit.

Haas F1 Team’s first home race of the season came to a disappointing end, with Kevin Magnussen retiring late on and Mick Schumacher finishing fifteenth at the Miami Grand Prix.

Despite both drivers having poor Qualifyings, Schumacher and Magnussen found themselves in the points half-way through the race at the Miami International Autodrome.

By the end of the race though, it had become an afternoon in the blazing sun to forget. Magnussen retired from the race following a collision with Lance Stroll, whilst Schumacher dropped to fifteenth following a late incident with Sebastian Vettel.

Haas Team Principal, Guenther Steiner was understandably disappointed by the end result, especially as both drivers demonstrated good pace.

“Clearly not the day we wanted – especially this being one of our home events. The pace in the car was there and it was demonstrated by both drivers, but once again we got unlucky with some events on track. It’s disappointing to look like you were going to come away with points and then not – Mick’s incident with Sebastian took care of that unfortunately.

Mick Schumacher’s inaugural Miami Grand Prix came to a disappointing end, the German was involved in a late incident with Sebastian Vettel which saw the young German’s hopes of scoring his first Formula 1 points diminish.

Schumacher who started the race in fifteenth, made an excellent start at the Miami International Autodrome. It wasn’t long until the Haas F1 Team driver found himself in the top ten, and on-track for his first points in the championship.

It came to a crashing end for Schumacher though, after the German went for an audacious move on his “mentor”. The move saw Schumacher collide with Vettel, resulting in the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team driver retiring immediately. Schumacher went on to finish fifteenth, after pitting for a nose change.

Schumacher was bitterly disappointed to have missed out on points, in what he called “our best race so far this year”.

“The car was really good so I’m gutted that we didn’t get to stay in position – I think it was our best race so far this year. We’re all racers, we’re all trying, and it was always going to be tough to keep new tyres behind us and it was very unfortunate to end the race in that way. We were on the road to getting points, but we’ll have to wait some more.”

Pascal Wehrlein is looking to put the disappointment of losing a potential victory in the Monaco E-Prix two weeks ago behind him as the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship rolls into Germany for the Berlin E-Prix double-header this weekend.

The Tag Heuer Porsche FE Team driver had just taken over the lead when he suddenly slowed in Monaco, and he was forced to pull over and stop the car, ending his chances of a second victory of the season.

Despite that disappointment, Wehrlein says the team are eager to race in front of their home fans this weekend, and the pace the team showed in Monaco prior to the retirement gives him hope that they will be quick this weekend at the Tempelhof Airport Street Circuit.

“We’re all looking forward to this race,” said Wehrlein. “In Berlin, there will be a lot of Porsche fans at the racetrack supporting us from the sidelines. This will be a real home game and a special motivation for the whole team.

“The competition in Formula E is extreme, you can’t win every weekend. In Mexico, we gave a very strong performance, and even in Monaco a podium finish would’ve been possible, maybe even a win. Everything was coming together.

Scuderia AlphaTauri’s, Yuki Tsunoda, was unable to convert his ninth-place starting position to a points finish at the Miami Grand Prix, citing that he “struggled with pace” from the start and couldn’t recover the positions lost. He ended up finishing twelfth after being promoted a position due to Daniel Ricciardo’s five-second time penalty. 

“I’m really disappointed with today. On the first lap I struggled with pace and was overtaken by a few cars, then I wasn’t able to recover from there for the rest of the race.”

Tsunoda was able to move up the timesheets with each practice session, a positive trend that saw him go from eighteenth to thirteenth to eleventh, followed by a solid qualifying that allowed him to reach Qualifying 3.

He said that the team had “built-up confidence” in the AT03 and its abilities on the brand-new track since the start of the weekend, which added to the disappointment of his inability to score points after a solid showing at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

“We were happy with the way that we’d built up our confidence in the car from FP1, so it’s frustrating to have performed so poorly today.”

Scuderia AlphaTauri were unable to convert their fruitful qualifying results to points at the Miami Grand Prix, as Yuki Tsunoda finished twelfth and an incident with Lando Norris resulted in Pierre Gasly’s retirement from the race.

AlphaTauri Technical Director Jody Egginton said that the result was particularly “disappointing” considering their Saturday performance. He praised Gasly’s efforts in the midfield battles, and said that the two consecutive incidents with Fernando Alonso and Norris accumulated into his retirement.

“Today’s race result is disappointing after such a strong Qualifying. Pierre battled strongly in the midfield against the Alpines, but unfortunately was hit by Alonso during a passing manoeuvre, costing him to lose places to both the Alpine and Stroll. Soon after, he had contact with Norris which caused more damage to his car, meaning we had no choice but to retire him from the race.”

Egginton said that the team “gambled” when it came to Tsunoda’s strategy, as the Japanese driver was having difficulty in the beginning of the race. Ultimately, the early stop he took did not help matters, and the car’s performance remained less than ideal. A second stop onto soft tyres saw some improvement, however, it was too late in the Grand Prix for Tsunoda to recover points. 

“Yuki struggled in the first stint, so we gambled on an early stop but the pace and car balance in his second stint was also inconsistent, meaning it was difficult to make sufficient progress. We need to go through all the data to understand the reasons behind these issues. Yuki managed to show some better pace in his final stint on the soft tyre, but by this point we were running out of laps to move forward further, and he finished out of the points.” 

Maximilian Günther says this weekend’s Berlin E-Prix double-header will be a challenge for all drivers, with the German aiming for a return to the points after a troubled start to the 2021-22 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship season.

The Nissan e.dams driver was on course for the top ten in the last round in Monaco, but a lack of usable energy cost him dearly as he dropped to the back of the field on the final lap.

However, Günther is heading to a track he knows well and has fond memories of, with the German having taken a victory at the Tempelhof Airport Street Circuit back in 2020.

“I’m very much looking forward to my second home race of the season!” said Günther.  “My first one was last week in Monaco, where I live, and now Berlin.

“It’s always a challenge to race here. The high grip levels of the concrete surface are quite unique, and there are a lot of overtaking opportunities. So we need to optimize our package to be strong overall.

The month of May at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is now officially underway with the completion of the first practice session for the GMR Grand Prix, and championship leader Alex Palou sits atop the timing sheets much like he does the points standings.

After a red flag was displayed with under two minutes left for Helio Castroneves who spun in front of the pit entry in turn 13, some drivers elected to put on a fresh set of firestone tyres and squeeze in one more flying lap. Palou was one of them, and took the top spot right at the end.

It came at the expense of Callum Ilott and Juncos Hollinger Racing, however, who are already turning heads once again like they did at Barber Motorsports Park. Ilott bested some of the most dominant drivers at the IMS road course like Will Power and Simon Pagenaud, finishing second in the session.

“I think we learned a lot last weekend at Barber,” said car owner Ricardo Juncos. “We’re improving every time, every lap we’re improving ourselves, himself [Callum], the whole team, so obviously we’re very happy to be here and what we’re doing as well, it’s very challenging. [Callum] has some experience at the track from last year, we did a pre-season test before the last few races so, so far so good.”

Behind him sat Power, who was consistently one of the fastest this session, in third, and Graham Rahal in fourth who, like Palou, benefitted from fresh tyres at the end of the session.

Regardless of one’s opinion on Drive to Survive, there is no denying the impact it has had on Formula One‘s growth. With so many motorsport championships having documentary series in the works like NASCAR and IndyCar, Extreme E is doing the same with Race for the Planet. Produced by NEO Studios, the five-part series will begin streaming on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and Ireland in early summer.

“We are absolutely thrilled to announce our new documentary Race for the Planet, highlighting the untold stories behind the scenes of Extreme E on and off the track, taking audiences along with us as we race in the most remote locations of the planet,” said Extreme E Chief Marketing Officer Ali Russell. “We have captured what it is like to race and breathe Extreme E. We break down the barriers, bring authenticity to displaying the ups and down of motorsport, the challenges and essentially, how gladiatorial Extreme E is. Listening into the intimate thoughts of some of the best drivers in motorsport makes this documentary even more exciting and entertaining.

“Working with Prime Video was the perfect way to release this original documentary to showcase Extreme E as pioneers and a sport for purpose Championship. Not only will Race for the Planet bring our fans and viewers into the heart of our racing and legacy projects, but this documentary will also attract a new audience to Extreme E.”

Each episode follows a round of the 2021 season. For example, the first episode “Bite the Dust” details the inaugural XE race, the Desert X Prix in Saudi Arabia, while the fifth and final chapter “Old Rivalries” focuses on the season-ending Jurassic X Prix. In between are “Roots” (Ocean X Prix), “Thin Ice” (Arctic), and “Fired Up” (Island). Non-racing segments are led by interviews with various drivers: Kyle LeDuc, Catie Munnings, Laia Sanz, and the Hansen brothers Kevin and Timmy. The show also discusses legacy programmes that the series has undertaken to raise environmental awareness.
A theatrical premiere took place in late April.

“The idea of Extreme E is so bold and exciting, and what we have is really the ultimate account of the competition’s first campaign,” added executive producer Anouk Mertens. “The series not only documents an incredible season of racing in some of the most extreme conditions imaginable, but also shines the light on some remarkable human stories. We are excited to be partnering with Prime Video to get the show to audiences later this year.”