Not everything is so boldly black and gold when it comes to DS Penske right now.
Multi-faceted answers to questions in Formula E are not especially exceptional, although, in the case of automotive behemoth Stellantis and Formula E’s Penske operation, it's one of the more complex subject matters to unravel.
The alliance between DS Automobiles and Jay Penske’s eponymous organisation began for the start of Formula E's Gen3 era in late 2022.
It tasted early success with a win for Jean-Eric Vergne at the Hyderabad E-Prix but that has not since been revisited in over 18 months. It's an initial legacy a bit too lean for Penske’s liking.
It hasn’t been that far away from Porsche and Jaguar but with customer teams Envision and Andretti in the mix, it’s been a case of ‘best of the rest’ for DS Penske.
It improved on its championship position in 2024 finishing third compared to its 2023 placing of fifth. Vergne was also the best qualifier on average during the season just beating champion Pascal Wehrlein.
The partnership between the two entities has been fraught in terms of personnel with a high turnover of people, the majority of which transferred from the DS Techeetah team that took five titles, two for Vergne, one for Antonio Felix da Costa and two for the team, between 2018 and 2020.
Part of that has undoubtedly been the arrival of former Jaguar technical director Phil Charles, who was summoned and tempted away by Penske at the end of 2023.
Charles joined the team just before the Sao Paulo E-Prix in March, and by the end of the season several personnel had left, some more publicly than others. Namely its now former head of race strategy, Clement Ailloud, who took to the LinkedIn social media platform to murmur darkly that “today this team and its spirit is being torn apart so I decided to walk away.
“I know that the future will be bright and fun somewhere else very soon, I know the kind of people I want to work with, I know that racing and performing can be done with a smile and a family spirit."
With other former DS Techeetah staff such as team manager Nigel Beresford and Jean-Eric Vergne’s engineer Thibault Arnal having also left the team, it will be a very different-looking landscape next season. It has to be because frankly, it didn’t feel like a happy place for much of last season.
Charles is a hard taskmaster, of which there is little doubt. He came to Formula E from stints at Renault and Toro Rosso (above, left) and clearly has a mindset devoted to pushing teams he works with full-bore, demanding success.
It was achieved at Jaguar and he’s clearly determined to do it again at DS Penske. The changes are likely just the start of further shake-ups that are likely to be at least influenced by DS Automobiles’ own future in Formula E.
While Penske feels a bit twitchy about its long-term future, the model itself of working with a manufacturer and dipping into its expertise and technical resources feels solid enough. For now.
Where is DS Headed?
For DS Automobiles a future beyond Gen3 has been subject to serious question marks. It has missed the Gen4 registration deadline, although along with Mahindra and perhaps ERT it still has time to be part of the landscape.
It is now a decade since the brand was fully launched, or re-launched if you count the iconic 1955 Citroen DS model, and nine years since DS Performance hooked up with Virgin Racing for the second season of Formula E when powertrain freedom was granted.
It was initially headed up by Xavier Mestelan Pinon who is now in charge of technical affairs at the FIA. Ditto his successor at DS Performance Thomas Chevaucher, who joined his former boss at the FIA at the beginning of 2024.
His replacement was Eugenio Franzetti, and it was he who told The Race at Portland in June that a decision on DS’ future Formula E involvement would not come until after the end of the 2023-24 campaign.
“We are working on it and we are doing all the simulation in terms of cost and the return on investment, which is a very, very, very important,” said Franzetti.
“We are trying to analyse all the possible scenarios and that is good news because we are working on it.”
Part of that will be DS’ analysis of where Formula E might be in the future and all of the key performance indicators (KPIs) that it can form and hit, something which, like all the other manufacturers in recent seasons, has caused concern.
“It's important even that Formula E give us all the information about the value of the return of the investment, the value of the visibility,” continued Franzetti.
“Because motorsport is a marketing tool. And so, in terms of the marketing tool, which is the value of the visibility that the championship has today and the value of the visibility that the championship will have tomorrow because this is part of the analysis that we have to do.”
The value of visibility is crucial for DS. Its mothership Stellantis reported that net revenues grew 6% year-on-year to €189.5 billion for 2023 and a net profit rise of 11% to €18.6 billion. Its global Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) sales were up 21% and European sales data shows that DS Automobiles sold just under 50,000 cars in 2022.
France remains DS’ best market. However, the brand is lagging behind in the UK with its new car sales for 2023 showing a -34.59% decrease year-on-year according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers data.
Its activity in China is essentially over after a joint venture with the Changan company ceased and notification of its manufacturing in the country ending was communicated last year.
That was around the same time that DS confirmed that it would become an exclusively electric brand this year, with its CEO, Beatrice Foucher, who has attended several E-Prixs, saying that “the next developments in legislation and the EV ecosystem provide opportunities that we want to offer to our customers who already like our electrified range".
They added: “I took the decision to speed up the development to create a new 100% electric art of travel, desirable in terms of enjoyment and remarkable in terms of quality and performance: a new art of travel, steadfastly high tech and still just as refined. It is a daring plan that will take shape from 2024.”
Does that automatically mean a continuation in Formula E? No. Does it mean DS has a better chance of sticking around? Possibly.
Formula E has captured Nissan, Porsche and Jaguar, its big three prestige manufacturers already, and that is what actually may help in informing Stellantis’ upcoming decision.
Like Mahindra though, it feels a genuine 50/50 at present, a middle ground of not being here and not being there. Not dissimilar to DS’ last couple of seasons on the track in Formula E.
Where is Penske Headed?
Despite some friction and change, DS Penske will be seeing out its deal until the end of the 2025-26 season, but the chances of it being renewed into Gen4 one year later are said to be slim.
If DS continue into Gen4, and that is believed to be a sizeable if at present, then perhaps another Stellantis brand might come to the fore and be aligned with Penske.
Names such as Abarth and Dodge have been permeating the Formula E paddock for the last few months, with the latter being thought to be the most likely. Abarth is less likely as Maserati is believed to be in line for continuing into Gen4, meaning that two Italian Stellantis brands in the same series would make little sense.
Famed muscle-car brand Dodge has a reasonably varied heritage in racing, with multiple championships in NASCAR as early as the 1950s and as recently as 2012, the latter coincidentally with Team Penske.
It also powered the North American-based single-seater Barber Pro Series from 1995-2003, and its famous Viper model will be a well-known sight to sportscar fans via the original model in the 1990s and 2000s, and the relaunched newer model in the 2010s.
The US brand recently did a deal for the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat to be used as the safety car in the World Superbike Championship and is also involved in drag racing. Dodge also revealed its first fully electric vehicle, the Dodge Charger Daytona, earlier this year.
Penske is also known to have spoken to Hyundai in recent months, and while the Korean manufacturer is believed to be favouring a future Hypercar programme its long been linked with, it could still feasibly do this in conjunction with a Formula E programme should it be with an existing operator.
What makes these future possibilities more practical is that Penske has founded a new facility in Witney, UK recently.
The Penske Autosport Research Labs Limited was formed in July but had seen plenty of activity in its setting up from when Charles joined in March.
The Race understands that the facility is essentially a special projects space that incorporates a simulator but is not presently thought to be an intrinsic part of Penske’s Formula E plans moving forwards.
That could metamorphose into something more active further down the line, and the assumption has to be that Penske and Charles are readying for a potential pivot for Gen4.
Whether that is with a Stellantis brand, a giant like Hyundai, or even as its own generator of technology, Penske is in Formula E permanently, of that there is no doubt.
