Formula E
Formula E, officially the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship for sponsorship reasons, is the highest class open-wheel single-seater motorsport championship for electric cars. The inaugural championship race was held in Beijing in September 2014. Since 2020, the series has had FIA world championship status.
The ABB FIA Formula E World Championship season consists of a series of races, each known as an ePrix. These take place in multiple countries and continents around the world, mostly on street circuits created specifically for Formula E on closed public roads in the centre of major cities, with a small number on purpose-built circuits such as Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City. A points system is used at each ePrix to determine two annual World Championships: one for the drivers, and one for the teams. Each driver must hold a valid e-Licence issued by the FIA to compete.
Formula E cars are one of the fastest racing cars in the world. Major changes made for the 2022–23 season in the development of the Gen3 car were delivered as software updates directly to the advanced operating system built into the car. The estimated top speed is 322 km/h. The battery is also designed to be able to handle "flash-charging" delivering up to 600 kW of power, allowing pitstop recharging into the championship for the first time. The wheelbase has been reduced from 3100 mm to 2970 mm and the weight reduced to 760 kg.
Formula E shareholders include Selim Fouad and Warner Bros. Discovery. As of 2024, Formula E’s founder and Spanish businessman Alejandro Agag is the company’s Chairman, and the Chief Executive Officer is Jeff Dodds.
History
The proposal for a city-based, single-seater electric car motor racing championship was conceived by Jean Todt, the president of the world governing body of motorsport, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, and presented to politicians Alejandro Agag and Antonio Tajani at a dinner at a small Italian restaurant in the French capital Paris on 3 March 2011. Tajani was concentrated on the electrification of the automobile industry, reducing carbon-dioxide emissions and introducing hybrid and electric systems. Agag supported Todt's proposal after the latter discussed the FIA opening up a tender to organise the series. Agag told Todt that he would take on the task because of his prior experience in negotiating contracts with television stations, sponsorship and marketing.Since the 2020–21 season, Formula E is a FIA World Championship, making it the first single-seater racing series outside of Formula One to be given world championship status.
Regulations
The Formula E championship is currently contested by 20 drivers, and 10 teams as of the 2026 season. The sport features electric-powered race cars similar in style to the hybrid-drive cars of Formula One. Racing generally takes place on temporary city-centre street circuits, that are around long, although the series is slowly moving towards racing on more traditional circuits, such as Shanghai International Circuit, and the Circuito del Jarama.Practice
All practice sessions in Formula E are usually 40 minutes long, with the first practice session generally taking place on Friday afternoon, while the second takes place on Saturday morning. During these sessions, the drivers are free to use the full qualifying power output. An additional practice session takes place on Sunday morning in "doubleheader" weekends, where the series runs two races on the same track on back to back days.Qualifying
The qualifying session typically takes place later in the day and lasts approximately one hour. Under the current format, the drivers are split into two groups based on their position in the championship; those in odd-numbered places go into group A, while those in even-numbered places go into group B. The exception is in the first race of the season, where each team can nominate one driver into each group. Each group gets a 10-minute session to set a fastest lap at 300 kW, of which the top 4 of each group will advance to the "duels" stage, where drivers face off head-to-head at 350 kW over a quarter-final, semi-final and final. The winner of the final then lines up in position 1, the loser of the final in position 2, the losers of the semi-final in positions 3 and 4, and the losers of the quarter-final in positions 5 through 8, in order of time set in their respective sessions. The rest of the drivers from the group stage are placed alternately from position 9, with the polesitter's group in the odd places, and the other group in the even places.Race format
Formula E, like most other major motorsport series, currently has races that have a certain lap distance set. Also, for every four minutes that are spent under full course yellow or the safety car, an additional lap of racing is added to the race length.A feature called 'Pit Boost' was introduced during Season 11, where the drivers would come into the pits to service a mandatory 30 second pit stop that will charge the batteries, and add 3.85 kWh of energy to them. In the race, the maximum power output of the cars is currently restricted to 300 kW.
Since the all-weather tyres are designed to last for a whole race, pit stops are only needed to change a punctured tyre or perform repairs on the car.
History of race formats
From Season 1–4, Formula E had a lap distance set, with pit-stops to swap cars halfway through as the batteries lacked the capacity to last the whole race. However, from Season 5, the race was set to 45 minutes plus one lap, as the introduction of the Gen2 car that year saw the batteries in the cars lasting to the end of the race, ending the necessary pitstops. With the introduction of the Gen3 Car in Season 9 Formula E reverted to the lap format.For season 6 and 7, for each minute spent under safety car or FCY, 1 kW⋅h of energy was removed from the total usable energy, giving drivers and teams more energy management tactics. In Season 8, a newly introduced 'added time' format was used, where every full minute under a safety car or full course yellow within the first 40 minutes, 45 seconds was added to the race time up to a maximum of 10 minutes, before the 'added lap' format that is currently used replaced the 'added time' format in Season 9.
Track formats
Formula E started out in 2014–15 as holding races solely on street circuits, many of them built as temporary circuits. The first race on a dedicated racetrack was held at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico in the 2016–17 season, albeit in a heavily shortened track setup compared to the one used in Formula 1's Mexican Grand Prix.In the 2020–21 season, the Puebla ePrix and Valencia ePrix were held on configurations comparable to their full-length configurations, being 381 m and 629 m shorter respectively.
The first-ever Formula E race held on a full-length racetrack configuration of a circuit designed for other racing leagues, or in fact a longer one than the main configuration, was the 2023 Portland ePrix at the Portland International Raceway.
In the 2019–20 season, Tempelhof hosted the first race held on a reverse configuration of a track's main layout in Formula E.
Point scoring
Points are awarded to the top ten drivers using the standard FIA system. The driver securing the pole position is also awarded 3 points, while the driver setting the fastest lap additionally receives 1 point. In addition, for season six and seven the driver achieving the fastest lap during group qualifying was awarded 1 point. The championship consists of both a drivers' and teams' championship. A driver's end of season total is made up of a driver's best results. A team's total is made up by counting both drivers' scores throughout the season.Fanboost
For Formula E's first eight seasons, fans could vote for their favorite driver via the official website or app to potentially provide teams with an extra power boost which can be activated by pushing an overtake button. Voting started three days before the event and closed after the opening 15 minutes of the race. The five drivers that got the most votes each received an extra power burst that could be used in a 5-second window during the second half of the race. Since the 2023 season, Fanboost was discontinued.Attack Mode
With the fifth season, a feature called Attack Mode was introduced, in which drivers received an additional 25 kW in season 5 of power after driving through a designated area of the circuit off the racing line. The duration of the boost mode and the number of boosts available are decided only shortly before each race by the FIA to reduce the time the teams have to find the optimal strategy. All attack modes must be activated at the end of the race, If there is a full course yellow period or a safety car, attack mode is not allowed to be activated.The Attack Mode format was changed up for Season 9, as instead of a constantly changing number of times the drivers had to drive through the activation zone during the race, and also the changing amount of time that each Attack Mode period lasted, the drivers would now get a combined 4 minutes of Attack Mode to use, that would be used in 2 activation periods throughout the race. During the first activation period, drivers would have to choose their Attack Mode activation time 'strategy', where they could either pick from having 2 2-minute attack mode periods, a 1-minute to start and then a 3-minute period, or vice versa. From the 2023 Jakarta ePrix, it was lengthened to a combined 8 minutes that could be deployed in 2 minutes and then 6 minutes or vice versa or 2 4-minute periods.
Pit Boost
In Season 9, a new feature known as Attack Charge was set to be introduced in a few races later in the season, however, due to the need to solve issues with the Gen3 car's new batteries, the production of the fast chargers was delayed, and as a result, after criticisms from the teams about shifting to a new race format midway through the season, the debut of Attack Charge was pushed back.After more than two years after the initial announcement of the feature, now known as Pit Boost, made its debut at the 2025 Jeddah ePrix. In Pit Boost races, all drivers are required to do a mandatory 30-second stop to recharge the car's batteries at 600 kW, and give the drivers an extra 3.85 kWh of energy to use throughout the rest of the race. This pitstop will have to be taken in a certain window in the race, chosen by the race officials prior to the event. No other work on the cars is allowed to be carried out during the quick-charging pitstops, and only one car per team is allowed to take the stop at a time.