The return of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship to Rome on July 15-16 launches a title-deciding homestretch that will anoint the top-performing drivers and teams of Season 9. The double-header weekend – a fifth visit to the Italian capital by the series – brings the all-electric competition back to Europe for rounds 13 and 14 of a globe-circling campaign and back to the city-street circuits that are the foundation of Formula E.
These decisive final races – a London double-header at the end of the month concludes the season – promise an intense finale to a season energized by the debut of a faster, more efficient Gen3 car and the introduction of four new circuits. Three drivers, none of whom have won the championship before, are locked in a see-saw quest for the title, and several more lurk within mathematical reach of grabbing the lead.
Andretti’s Jake Dennis leads the chase with 154 points, just ahead of Envision’s Nick Cassidy, on 153. Pascal Wehrlein of ABB partner team Porsche is close behind on 138 points.
The 19-turn layout of the 3.4 km (2.1 miles) Circuito Cittadino dell'EUR course, one of the longest on the ABB Formula E calendar, offers the benefit of being familiar to competitors, yet its daily-use pavement and undulating surface remain formidable challenges. Among the title contenders most eager to test himself against these conditions will be Mitch Evans of Jaguar TCS Racing, who stands fourth in the points on 122 and has already won twice this year, in São Paulo and Berlin.
Evans presents a considerable threat to the drivers ranked ahead of him, having won the Rome race in 2019 as well as sweeping both rounds in 2022. He earned those wins with limited guidance from his engineers in the pits, a result of Formula E’s tight restrictions on data telemetry. Though every car is fitted with hundreds of sensors to measure conditions and compile data, only the FIA race organizers have real-time access to all information transmitted from the car. The driver receives selected measurements via readouts on the steering wheel, but engineers on the pit wall see around 30 channels of safety-related data during the race. These include alerts for conditions such as a failure of the brake-by-wire system or a high battery voltage.
The technology of data acquisition and analysis is an area where ABB has vast expertise, of course, thanks to innovations like Smart Sensors deployed to monitor operating parameters and manage maintenance routines on fast chargers, electric motors and industrial robots – even methane emissions from a satellite in orbit.
Managing data with bespoke software is a crucial element of winning performance in Formula E, explains Phil Charles, technical manager of the Jaguar TCS team. “The software code development is massive – this is the big thing about Formula E,” he says. “Without the telemetry and the ability of engineers to see a problem, the car has to react for itself, with the goal to get to the end of the race as efficiently as possible with the maximum performance.
“So we have more leeway in that than other series – the code freedom is massive. And the update rate between races is very high. It may be that we spotted a more efficient way to use energy or a way to help the car rotate in corners.”
On the track, the driver does receive a limited amount of data from the car’s sensors, and those key parameters are relayed by radio via an alphanumeric code of four to six characters that’s generated by an algorithm. From that data, the team may see an opportunity to help the driver. As an example, Charles cites a situation of a track where the rear tires work harder and heat up. The team can choose to monitor the channels that will provide that information.
“The driver has a number of tools to adjust balance, so I can say to the driver that you might want to try this to help,” Charles says. “He can adjust for understeer or change the braking to help rotate the car, a bit like using the handbrake. There are also ways to help optimize the energy – that algorithm is a bit of a secret, but it’s similar to the algorithm in a road car to help you get the car to a charger.”
Charles is quick to add that the drivers, beyond being exceptional athletes, are the ultimate dataloggers and data processors, providing instant feedback and carrying a far higher level of duties than in other series where engineers and computers can work out solutions. “I call them the squishy bits, and they do amazing calculations, with huge processing ability in situations like a bumpy street track.”
That insight is well supported by the tight competition and multiple different winners over a season, Charles points out.
Following the Rome races, the final Season 9 rounds will be held at the London ExCel Circuit on July 29-30, where the variety of road surfaces and the indoor-outdoor layout of the course will add another dimension of difficulty to the competition.
As it has throughout the season, in its Official Charging Partner role for the championship, ABB will be powering all 11 teams with bespoke fast chargers, custom-built at ABB’s Valdarno factory in the Tuscany region of Italy.
