⚡🇸🇦 Formula E S11E03, 04: Ticked off

Two points from a weekend in Saudi Arabia will feel like a missed opportunity for Dan Ticktum, and while two points is valuable, Ticktum and his Kiro team had the chance to get the jump on Envision if race one had gone better.

Have a listen to this. It’s quite sweary. Right down to the thumbnail.

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Ticktum was running eighth at one point and was looking good for points before a battery issue meant that he had to reboot his car, losing time and ultimately falling out of the top 10. After the race, he was handed a 25-second penalty with mechanics working on his car when they shouldn’t have been.

Emotions run high in motorsport, and risking injury while hurtling down a track at 140mph would have anyone swearing. But professional drivers aren’t anyone. Fans love it when drivers start shouting in the car, and this has become something of a Ticktum trademark, long before his time in Formula E. 

This is not going to be a Masterpiece Theatre of Dan Ticktum swearing, starring Dan Ticktum, but even at his angriest, he sounds like a banker who has been handed a coffee order with the wrong type of nut milk in his mug. At every stage of his - and every other driver’s career - there are hundreds of people that ensure that the car starts in the first place.

In his defence, at no point does he swear or insult his team. His frustration is understandable. Now in his fourth season in Formula E, the former Red Bull and Williams junior has finished in the points 11 times after the double header in Jeddah. His talent has always been there, and in this series, his best result was a fifth in Misano 2024, later upgraded to a fourth.

Have a listen to this. It’s quite happy.

For better or worse, Ticktum is a driver that wears his heart on his racing suit, and no one in the Paddock will ever be left wondering how he feels about them. But long-term, I think this has to change.

While Ticktum continues to be known more for his vocabulary than anything else, he won’t be taken seriously as a contender in Formula E. He has languished at the basement of the grid, but this isn’t necessarily his fault, working with uncompetitive cars. Even then, like that result in Misano, he has shown that he can be among the front-runners and why not be a contender for a title? He would probably have to move teams, but as one of 24 drivers to have raced 1,500+ laps in Formula E, and only at 25 years of age, he should be being talked about as someone who could step up.

There are two things holding him back. One, is the lack of a statement performance. It would be a huge result if Ticktum could drag his Cupra Kiro to the podium at any circuit. He’d need a strong individual performance, a genius strategy, some attrition elsewhere and a heavy dose of luck to do it, but as he has proved in Formula 2, he has shown he can win races. The other thing he needs to change is to not be known as the sweary guy on the grid. Mitch Evans swears for example, but you ask any Formula E fan what Evans is known for, they won’t reply with an f-bomb. Until Ticktum changes that perception, he won’t be seen as a serious contender.

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The best Dan Ticktum team radio from Season 9… 📻😂 #motorsport #racing #formulae

It’s not like he doesn’t think about what he’s saying. After he’d calmed down in Jeddah, Ticktum seemed resigned, saying. "I can't remember the last time where I finished the day at the racetrack and thought, 'Yeah, that's gone well, I've had good luck today'. So I need a break." 

While he waits for that break, and a performance that gets people talking about him for the right reasons, there’s one more record that might motivate him. Dan Ticktum’s former teammate, Sérgio Sette Câmara, currently holds the record for the most races without a podium. That stands at 66, and while Câmara may be back later this season to fill in for Norman Nato’s Nissan, Ticktum is second on that list with 52. It’s a record no-one wants to be known for, doubly so for being known as the sweary guy who can’t finish top 3. Ticktum is too good for that, but at some point, the potential has to stand out as actions, not words.