Dan Ticktum will race on into the Gen3 era of Formula E after agreeing to a second season with the NIO 333 team recently. He joins the already-announced Sergio Sette Camara in the British-based, Chinese-owned squad.
Although Ticktum scored only a single point last season many of his performances were heralded in the team, particularly his drives in the second New York and Seoul races.
It was in the first of those events that the ex-Williams and Red Bull Formula 1 test driver felt he delivered his best race. He finished 12th, 20 seconds ahead of team-mate Oliver Turvey and ahead of Sebastien Buemi’s Nissan and Oliver Rowland’s Mahindra.
Ticktum’s statistics stacked up favourably against the experienced Turvey – whose seven-season tenure with the team now comes to an end – as he won the qualifying duel 9-7 and claimed by far the best grid start for the team with a brilliant sixth on the grid at the aforementioned Seoul finale.
The 23-year-old entered his maiden season with just two days of FE running before his first race weekend in Diriyah, and it became evident that he was able to quickly adapt from traditional junior single-seaters to the less powerful but overall more nuanced and busier cockpit of Formula E Gen2 cars.
Confirmation of his second season with NIO 333 alongside Sette Camara means that the Chinese-owned team will have two of the most aggressive racers on the grid within its midst for 2023.
The pair were instrumental in one of the greatest Macau Grands Prix ever seen in 2017 when Ticktum took advantage of the Brazilian crashing out at the final corner while the latter was battling with Ferdinand Habsburg.
Ticktum and his management company are known to have scoped out potential programmes away from Formula E in the summer. However, Ticktum is believed to have originally signed a two-year deal with NIO 333 – although the usual options existed for both parties to make a call on working together for a sophomore campaign.
“From the testing I’ve done in the NIO 333 ER9 already the car feels in a different league to the Gen2,” Ticktum told The Race.
“It’s much better to drive and you definitely feel the difference in weight and, obviously, power.
“Overall, the car feels a lot more nimble, and more like a ‘traditional’ race car. I think it’s a very big step forward for the series and I’ve enjoyed developing the car with the team.”
The initial testing of NIO 333’s Gen3 development car has been described by the team’s’ chief operating officer Russell O’Hagan to have been “incredibly positive and exceeded expectations”.
“We’ve felt we have had a good car since the very first Gen3 test, but having comparative running helped cement that,” continued O’Hagan.
“It’s a boost for the team in what is essentially the development of our first full car as 333 Racing, and testament to what our team has achieved to date.”
NIO 333 has been most recently testing at UK’s Mallory Park venue last month.
Ticktum’s engineer Matt Beers, who is expected to stay in his position for 2023, told The Race last month that his charge was a “very intelligent driver” and “an intelligent guy.”
Beers also touched on Ticktum’s known volatility too, acknowledging that the working process “can get quite emotional, there are ups and downs but for me it’s been good”.
“He’s a quick driver and he’s very quick to adapt so I think he gets used to the circuit, obvious we do the sim sessions, he learns the track there, but there’s still a bit of learning for him to do.”
Confirmation of NIO 333’s full line-up means the last remaining seats on the 2023 Formula E grid, subject to the Techeetah team’s future after its split with DS, are the Maserati drive previously earmarked for AlphaTauri F1 signing Nyck de Vries and the second seat at McLaren’s new FE project.
LIKELY 2023 FORMULA E DRIVER LINE-UP
Maserati: Edoardo Mortara/tba
DS Penske: Stoffel Vandoorne/Jean-Eric Vergne
Jaguar: Mitch Evans/Sam Bird
Envision: Nick Cassidy/Sebastien Buemi
Porsche: Antonio Felix da Costa/Pascal Wehrlein
Avalanche Andretti: Jake Dennis/Andre Lotterer
Nissan: Sacha Fenestraz/Norman Nato
Mahindra: Lucas di Grassi/Oliver Rowland
NIO 333: Dan Ticktum/Sergio Sette Camara
McLaren: Rene Rast/tba
Abt: Robin Frijns/Nico Mueller
Techeetah: Future unclear
