until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
Jack Aitken has already gauged his IMSA SportsCar Championship team-mate Alexander Sims’s opinion ahead of his first appearance in a Formula E car next week.
Sims raced for four seasons in Formula E, scoring a victory and several podiums with the BMW Andretti and Mahindra teams between 2018 and 2022.
But the British driver, who recently won the 12 Hours of Sebring with Aitken and Pipo Derani, fell out of love with Formula E during a final, fractious season with Mahindra last year.
Sims opened up to The Race in Marrakesh last season about his reservations with the racing in Formula E, describing his personal experience in Formula E as “not for me”.
“I overthink things a bit too much and that probably works to my advantage a bit more in endurance racing because you have so much more time in the car, and you can actually fine-tune into things, but this will be my last season in Formula E. I made that decision myself,” he added.
The Race revealed earlier this month that Aitken would join Envision Racing for the Berlin rookie test, which features six hours of running next Monday at the temporary Tempelhof airfield track in Berlin.
Aitken does have similar attributes to Sims. Intelligent and analytical, he sees racing as just as much of a cerebral challenge as it is a sporting one.
Having come close to testing for DS Techeetah on a previous occasion, Aitken has had time to psychologically prepare for driving a Formula E car. But his discussion with Sims has also abetted that process as he gets ready to test himself with a car and discipline that are notoriously difficult to master.
“I’ve spoken about it with Alex [Sims] a little bit, and he’s quite an interesting case isn’t he, because he obviously has a background that he’s quite interested in this type of technology,” Aitken told The Race.
“He’s very much for it [EV tech]. He’s got all electric cars, he’s got solar panels on his house, and he’s a brutally honest man.
“He didn’t enjoy it, as I think he’s said publicly, in the end; he found it a very interesting exercise but the racing wasn’t for him, which was quite interesting to hear.
“That’s another really big reason as to why I want to sample it for myself. Every driver is different, they want different things from their careers and the way they go racing.”
Sims has long been a champion of clean technology and as long ago as 2013 took this writer out for a hair-raising exploration of Cambridgeshire a-roads in a Tesla.
A unique personality in modern-day professional racing, it still seems curious that Sims’ outlook on EV tech was not grabbed more enthusiastically by the Formula E promoter or the FIA.
On the flipside, Sims became exasperated by some elements of Formula E, particularly the lack of track time and the limitation on testing. Those factors, combined with a difficult atmosphere in the Mahindra team last season, which in itself probably perpetuated a run of poor results, proved sadly to be terminal when it came to his future in the all-electric world championship.
“I think Alex is quite unique in the sense that he’s got a tonne of experience and I think he’ll admit he came into Formula E hoping for it to be something and maybe it didn’t check all of those boxes for what he believes in and what he’s looking for,” added Aitken.
“That’s part of the reason he left, but I don’t want to speak too much on his behalf. I think he’s made his reasons clear.
“He was very helpful in telling me a little bit about it; what the teams are like, what the cars are like, the whole structure of the series, and that was quite helpful and very interesting and did help progress my talks with teams a little bit.
“He’s been a great team-mate and I really appreciate his help, always.”
Going into a new challenge every bit of advice and knowledge is useful. Aitken was wise to counsel Sims and it will help him get a mental picture of Formula E before he adorns that with practical experience in Berlin this week.
Depending on how the rookie test goes for Aitken next Monday, there is the possibility he will also get a ‘live’ session in additional free practice running at Rome in July.
“We haven’t discussed [the Rome rookie test] yet,” confirmed Aitken. “The priority is getting to Berlin and getting me integrated with the team.
“Rome is not something we’re talking about right now, let’s just see how this goes first.”
