Ferrari has 'agonised' over Formula E entry

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Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne has "agonised" over entering Formula E with the Scuderia but wants the technology to improve first.

Renault currently has a presence in the electric racing series, while Audi is stepping up its involvement and Mercedes has secured an entry for 2018/19 should it decide to commit. At present, while teams can develop their own power trains, drivers have to switch cars halfway through a race due to battery performance. However, from 2018 McLaren Applied Technology will supply a battery which will complete a full race distance.

During a teleconference following the announcement of Ferrari's Q3 financial results on the New York Stock Exchange, when asked whether Ferrari has considered entering Formula E in future, Marchionne replied: "The answer is yes.

"I have agonised over with this with my colleagues here in Ferrari for quite a while.

“I’m going to give you two answers to the problem. If Formula E requires people to change cars during a race because we exhaust the power available within a given car, that is not something that Ferrari would naturally gravitate to.

“Secondly, the standardisation associated with the electric car is something which runs against the grain of Ferrari because otherwise it will prevent [Ferrari] from playing whatever it is that it does technically on a vehicle.”

With Formula E carrying spec aerodynamics but still planning on letting manufacturers develop their own battery technology in future, Marchionne can see the category being more attractive in the coming years.

“If it were to happen it would happen a few years from now. It is possible that [after] some level of maturity that Ferrari would develop a unique set of skills that will make that car uniquely Ferrari, in an environment like that, but I know we are not there today.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.