Credit: Simon Galloway courtesy of FIA Formula E
Edoardo Mortara has stressed that Mahindra Racing can still make progress in season 10 despite the hardware being homologated until the end of the new campaign, with “so much” being possible “in terms of software”.
Mortara has switched from Maserati MSG Racing to Mahindra for the 2023/24 season, making many predict that he’ll be towards the back of the pack come Mexico City. This is because the Indian manufacturer’s powertrain was the weakest in season nine, with that being a part under homologation for another year.
Whilst energy efficiency wasn’t too big of an issue, one-lap pace was a huge problem for the Banbury-based team. As a result, it wasn’t a shock to see the four-Mahindra powered cars – two at Mahindra and two at ABT CUPRA – at the back of the grid.
This often left the likes of Lucas di Grassi with too much work to do during the races, to try and get amongst the top-10. As none of the hardware can be touched for season 10, it’s easy to predict that Mahindra will endure another troubling year before they can introduce their new powertrain in season 11.
However, Mortara has stressed that this isn’t necessarily the case, given that software changes can be made. For Mahindra, this is where any improvement in performance will come, with the Swiss driver having explained to Motorsport Week just how much can be played around with before racing gets underway in Mexico City in January.
He acknowledges that software changes can “take really a lot of time” but that “it’s actually quite nice” just how much can be altered to try and discover some performance gains.
Of course, Mahindra aren’t going to suddenly become a frontrunning team in season 10, far from that in fact, but Mortara is adamant that just because a hardware homologation is in place, doesn’t mean the backmarker should disregard season 10 to fully focus on season 11.
“There is so much that you can change,” Mortara admitted to Motorsport Week. “I keep on having this comment and Formula E is one of these categories where you can change. Probably it’s the category where you can change the most.
“I do understand that you have the hardware that is homologated for two years, so season nine and season 10. But in terms of software, you can do so much, obviously, and this is really making the car more or less competitive.
“If you have really strong software and strong IDs there, you’re going to be able to really make the car really competitive. And this is something that I truly believe obviously this will take a lot of time because in order to implement, let’s say, software changes, you need to code, you need to have maybe different philosophy and stuff like that.
“And this could take really a lot of time, but there is so much that you can do in this category. It’s actually quite nice.”
Keyword: Mortara: Hardware homologation doesn’t mean progress can’t be made