⚡🇧🇷 Formula E S11E01: Attack! Attack!

The newest version of Formula E’s attack mode is what it should have been from the start.

At every race this season, there is a short strip of track that is off the racing line. Hit the three transponders and your reward is a few minutes of extra power. You have to take eight minutes of it through the race in two batches. 

It changes the lights on your car, so your rivals can see an angry purple flash coming towards you and spectators can also see who is using the extra power. 

In case you missed it, the new season - Season 11 - of Formula E has started with a street race in Sao Paulo, and if you’re in the UK, ITV has coverage rights for this new evolution of electric cars. The catchily-named Gen3 EVO cars feature rapid acceleration, and being able to go all out for a few minutes helped several drivers push forward through the field.

Mitch Evans, who started last, Nick Cassidy and Zane Maloney all used attack mode to move through the field. Maloney is a new driver to the series but will be familiar to fans of Formula 2.

But it’s not just a speed boost that attack mode offers. For the first time, arming attack mode also unlocks all-wheel drive to provide stability alongside the extra power. This stability should give drivers more power and more confidence, ensuring that overtakes happen, after a couple of years where driving offline for attack mode became an obligation rather than something that offered a genuine strategic advantage to a driver.

And in Brazil, after Jake Dennis lost power and forced a red flag, the remaining laps brought the difference in attack mode to the fore. Despite the red flag, drivers that were in attack mode at the time did not get the time back, so the five drivers to watch were the McLaren pair of Taylor Barnard and Sam Bird, the Jaguars of Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy and Norman Nato’s Nissan. 

The McLaren’s forced their way back into solid points-paying positions, but Nick Cassidy and Mitch Evans sliced their way through their rivals, and, combined with Oliver Rowland getting a drive-through penalty, meant that Evans went from last to first with six laps to go. 

Attack mode is finally at the level Formula E might want it to be, if anything, it’s too overpowered now (!) but despite the iteration and innovation, some things don’t change, and with a few laps to go, a battle between the leading pack on the the narrow track meant that there wasn’t enough space. It led to Max Gunther hitting the wall, Cassidy going out and reigning champion Pascal Wehrlein upside down and into one of the walls.

It led to a second red flag as Wehrlein was uprighted and slowly exited his stricken Porsche. The closing chaos settled into the extra laps added as Mitch Evans became the first driver in Formula E’s history to go from last to first - a huge result in any series.

Joining the New Zealander on the podium was former champion Antonio Felix da Costa and a rookie in his first full season. Taylor Barnard moved up several places with six minutes of late attack mode and some clever power saving. There was an argument to say that with more power than his rivals, he could have been a contender for the win, but still took a podium. It’s his first with McLaren after two points finishes after standing in for three races in Season 10.

There is always something waiting to happen in Formula E, and the GEN3 Evo cars may become known for their overpowered attack mode. Even if it is overpowered, the drivers have to decide when and how to use their allocation. It’s about time attack mode, first introduced in Season 5, took centre stage. It may end up creating a genuine strategic choice, and it won’t be the only innovation Formula E is bringing this season.

The series will introduce Attack Charge aka Pit Boost at certain races in 2025. This is a mandatory 30-second pitstop that rapidly charges the battery and allows drivers to put down the power. It makes sense to be at certain races, featuring at one leg of a double-header, meaning that strategies get varied across a weekend. 

It will be first used at Jeddah, a new venue for Formula E, which had previously held its Saudi races in Diriyah. The teams have a trip to Mexico to come before that on the other side of Christmas. Historically, the series has gone out of its way to welcome and explain its series to new fans, and the start of this new generation of car is a good time to get involved.