One of the biggest mysteries and surprises of the current Formula E season is how and why, quite frankly, reigning teams champion Envision Racing has disappeared.
An average of four points per race, a total of 49 points from 12 races, and only a podium finish is a very poor result. For a team that uses one of the best technology packages on the grid across its customer relationship with Jaguar, this is a glaring anomaly.
To put 2024 in perspective, compared to the same period last season, Envision scored 176 fewer points. It is eighth out of 11 teams, 28 away from Maserati MSG, which, with a rookie driver in Jehan Daruvala, is effectively a one-driver team from a big points collection point of view thanks to Maximilian Günther.
Envision couldn't have done worse across the board this season. It's a combination of three major factors that have hurt him and may continue to do so.
Cassidy's loss
“Nick is obviously moving from our team to Jaguar and doing an excellent job there, so we've lost an asset there,” is the honest assessment given by Envision managing director and team principal Sylvain Filippi when asked by The Race why he couldn't execute the races as well as he did. In 2023.
Envision's loss is Cassidy and Jaguar's gain as he leads the Drivers' Championship with two events remaining.
Cassidy was clearly a master of working with his side of the garage to execute the early peloton races last year which saw him score a second in Sao Paulo and wins in Berlin and Portland to add to his traditional street fight victories in Monaco and London.
But Buemi scored 105 points alone last season, not including the 15 points he should have received after a podium finish in Hyderabad before he was deemed to have exceeded the series' power limit.
Buemi contributed greatly to Envision winning the title. This season, he has earned 24 points, one more than teammate Robin Frijnz, although both drivers missed two races during the WEC showdown at the Berlin round.
Whichever way you interpret it, Cassidy's stock only rises when you hold these facts in the light and analyze them. But the kiwi-to-jaguar migration is actually only a small part of a more complex picture.
Second album syndrome
The second season of the Gen3 ruleset has seen each factory BAR Mahindra beat their customer team fairly conclusively so far in points.
Porsche has a 73-point advantage over Andretti, who finished clear of the race last time out. Nissan leads McLaren by 68 points, and DS Penske has 77 points more than Maserati MSG.
But the biggest discrepancy comes with Jaguar earning a barely believable 250 more points than the team running the same package – Envision.
This, regardless of the official lines issued by the team, is not just due to accidents and occasional poor performances. This is much more important.
Envision and Jaguar are known to have a strong relationship. They have an engineer assigned to the races and a degree of data sharing that goes on from race to race and between events as well.
Like a difficult follow-up album to a global best-selling rock anthem, Envision's 2024 effort was a failed follow-up and may have its roots in a group of manufacturers making little provision for themselves on certain items and the field closing down and understanding package races much more.
“Obviously the manufacturer didn't like it [being beaten by its customer teams]“Felipe says.
“They are obviously trying to find ways to make sure this doesn't happen again.
“That can take different shapes and forms. At the end of the day, they're not doing anything wrong. But they have testing days that we don't have.”
“So, we are starting to feel the effects of not being a manufacturer. For example, the tires this year behave differently than last year, but without the test days, it will be very difficult to get past that. There are many other things.”
Some of these things will just be the fact that manufacturers have more resources and more budget by allocating the maximum cost to manufacturers as well. It wouldn't invest heavily and hand everything over to a competitor even if it had its intellectual property and expertise.
Last season was the time for customers to shine because manufacturers were exposed from the beginning by having to troubleshoot through the initial issues of Gen3. So the playing field was level, if not a little biased towards customers because they weren't down a development dead end due to issues.
Look at the visualization. Heading into the season opener in Mexico City, there was no racing at all with both drivers in attendance, in Cassidy's case a heart-stopping no-brake issue at Valencia, and Buemi with the same issue albeit with the consequences of a cracked chassis.
But it had immediate parity with the Jaguar. When things were resolved, Envision had an impressive run of results that saw them beat Jaguar for the team title.
However, that will not happen this year, as evidence suggests that the combination of manufacturer control and understanding of the cars they built is ultimately too powerful for customers to handle.
Add to that the fact that teams now understand more about how to handle the package racing aspect of E-Prixs and the Envision advantage last season has diminished even further.
“These peloton races are not really what they were last year,” says Filippi.
“We call them the same thing. But all the teams understand these things more now and we were the first to play them well strategically.
“Now, obviously every team knows how to do it and we are all closer together in terms of strategy. The level of risk has also gone up significantly compared to last year.
And he is right about all of that. Some drivers are willing to take enormous risks in intra-group battles. This is mostly what made Oliver Rowland's season and perhaps what helped define Envision's problems.
Additionally, shrinking gaps between grids result in the start of the top eight (going into duels) now dictated by hundredths if not thousandths of a second. A prime example of this was when Frijns missed out on the top eight by 0.002 seconds in Monaco.
Here lies the problem. In midfield now, the risks of getting hurt and not scoring or retiring are enormous. Frijns found that to his cost at Misano and Monaco. Buemi in Tokyo, Misano and Monaco.
“There have been some changes at Jaguar and things have changed since last year, but the car has been fast most of the time, when you look at the data,” Felipe says.
“It was mostly about qualifying at some locations, and then it was put on the race management. Overall, that was the main problem.
“So this is something we need to achieve without mistakes and in the second race in Shanghai we completely succeeded in achieving the strategy from the back.”
Driver dissatisfaction
Don't underestimate the psychological factor of the drivers and how much they will hate the race structure in at least half the races in Formula E this season.
Sebastien Buemi and Robin Frijns are completely different personalities and drivers. But they share the same trait of hating the way these races are run. They're not the only ones who probably hate 80% of the network – at least – what they stand for.
On Frijnes' side, part of that is because he's still suffering from the psychological after-effects of breaking his hand in Mexico City last season. His injury was so bad, it likely would have threatened his career a decade ago.
The chances of hurting hands during wheel to wheel or wheel to barrier contact are well known in Formula E and have caused multiple injuries.
Frijns stated on The Race after Misano in April that he let go of the wheel after being hit by another car and there were other occasions when he was concerned about the effects of another injury as well.
Also, drivers have been missing sessions at times this season as they have been off the pace. Shanghai Sunday was one example of this when the duo at the bottom of the qualifying groups did not move anywhere near the pace.
But it wasn't all bad. Podium finishes for both Buemi and Frijns in Mexico City and Riyadh respectively and the good pace shown in several races this season showed that the Envision has combined potential.
But with the gaps shrinking compared to last year, the grid was covered by less than half a second in most races. If you miss duels by fractions, which Frijns did by the aforementioned 0.002s in Monaco, you're akin to chaos come race day.
Felipe pointed out the style of racing his drivers were not used to.
“My drivers were really amazed, and if you talked to them directly they would tell you this is not the kind of racing they are used to,” he says.
“They are very good racing drivers. But this is different and it is clear that some drivers this year have embraced this type of racing better than others around the grid. That is quite clear.”
This seems like a slight dig at his drivers and perhaps Felipe is justified. But he has to prepare his team in the best possible way for this type of racing to continue because regardless of whether or not there are pit stops next season, there will likely be at least 50% of the races organized for extreme energy saving in Race elements and distinctive features of later pack races.
These facts and the clash between the Berlin E-GP and the Interlagos round of the World Endurance Championship next July do not bode well at this stage for Buemi and Frijnes' future plans.
The racing team understands Buemi has a contract for next season but there are likely to be the usual performance conditions in it. Frijns likely has something similar under his contract but of course performance works both ways too sometimes with drivers and teams.
“No one doubts Seb and Robin's ability to race,” Felipe adds.
“I think that actually, if you look at all the races obviously, some drivers, from several different teams, have a kind of 'I enjoy this type of racing a lot more than others'.
“It's not just my drivers, others either hate it very much or enjoy it, and that has an impact on the results as well.
“So, there's a lot of thinking to do.”
