McLaren has picked its 2024 supersub Taylor Barnard to replace Maserati MSG-bound Jake Hughes as it aims to fight back from a second successive disappointing Formula E season.
Formula 2 race winner Barnard will partner Sam Bird next season and is setting his sights on achieving similar levels of performance to that of Hughes, who took four pole positions and a podium finish in his two campaigns with McLaren.
The team had a race option for 2025 with 20-year-old Barnard, who will become the youngest ever full-time driver in Formula E’s decade-long history when he starts the Sao Paulo E-Prix in December.
He made three cameo appearances alongside Hughes after Bird broke a bone in his hand during free practice for the Monaco E-Prix in April. While Bird recuperated, Barnard also subbed at the Berlin E-Prix races in May, scoring 10th- and eighth-place finishes with two highly acclaimed performances.
The Race understands that Barnard started talking to McLaren seriously about a race seat in early June when it became clear that a new Hughes contract was unlikely to be agreed.
Terms for a deal were completed last month, ensuring that a Bird-Barnard alliance will be in place at the team next season. It is a deal that Barnard described to The Race as being "kind of a no-brainer".
"When I was even a reserve driver not actually doing the race weekends, the team are so positive, so helpful. so, it just feels so right for me to be here," added Barnard.
"I was hoping and wanting the opportunity to come up. And as soon as I got it, I took it with both hands. It wasn't really a decision I had to think about that much."
Why Barnard can flourish
When The Race suggested at the start of 2024 that Taylor Barnard could be the 'Kimi Raikonnen of Formula E', it was openly ridiculed by some in the paddock.
Most of them missed the point, which was to suggest that a team taking a chance on a rookie was long overdue, and one so young could be a risk worth taking.
McLaren deserves a lot of credit for doing that with first Jake Hughes and now Barnard. It bore the fruits of its success quickly with both, and perhaps that fact itself helped Ian James embolden himself in getting Barnard's signature inked.
It's Barnard's recent experience that is the interesting key here though.
He was karting just four years ago, finishing runner-up in the CIK-FIA Karting European Championship. The driver he lost out to by a mere two points? Likely 2025 Mercedes Formula 1 driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
Barnard's karting career was stellar. Prior to that highly competitive season, he was a multiple champion in his earlier career before racing for the Rosberg Racing Academy team set up by 2016 F1 champion Nico Rosberg.
It is Barnard's recent karting success that may have contributed to his excellent reading of the races in Berlin when he beat many much more experienced Formula E campaigners by picking his fights accordingly and knowing when to surge.
"I needed a little bit more time to really perfect energy management," said Barnard.
"I don't know if it's because I'm a younger driver, and I've spent more time in karting more recently than the other drivers on the grid, but I felt like when I jumped in I really understood when it was time to start pushing to the front or how to time my overtakes.
"So, I feel like I can spend a little bit more energy in terms of what I'm working on in other areas, instead of my racecraft."
Does Formula E undervalue rookies?
"It's very important to us that we generate more excitement around the championship, that's my job: to make sure that I'm bringing in a new audience and engaging the existing audience in the championship."
Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds isn't just stating the obvious here, he is outlining a long-held belief within and outside of Formula E that not enough rookies come into the world championship.
There has been just one new full-time driver in each of the previous two campaigns: Jake Hughes in 2023 and Jehan Daruvala last season. That stacks up similarly to F1 though, with zero full-time rookies this season and three in 2023 (Nyck de Vries, Logan Sargeant and Oscar Piastri).
Dodds puts importance on enticing rookies to Formula E because he reckons it "attracts new fans, it brings new excitement to the championship, you often see breakout stars come through".
But for teams, quite often, the path of least resistance is to stick with an experienced driver who has already raced with all-electric propulsion. This is because the complexity of multi-tasking in races is intense.
When Barnard finished his first E-Prix at Monaco he told The Race that there was "chaos everywhere" and "front wings all over the place".
Equally, when Caio Collet deputised for Oliver Rowland at Portland his pale pallor and shocked expression after the race caused his Nissan team director Dorian Boisdron to exclaim that his driver looked like "he'd been in a war zone".
But despite Daruvala being the only full-time rookie in 2024, there were actually four others who got a shot. Paul Aron and Jordan King joined Barnard and Collet in making at least two starts, meaning that actually through injury, illness and the tedious clash with the World Endurance Championship, opportunities arose (and will likely do so again).
"What's really important for me and as a promoter is that I provide more opportunities for people to show what they're capable of in the car," said Dodds.
"We will do what we can to encourage more opportunities for the teams to see more drivers and what they're capable of in the car. In the end, that decision is theirs.
"They have to weigh up for themselves the balance between stability and security of a pre-existing driver who knows the series and the car, versus bringing in new talent, creating a pipeline and creating a bit more interest in their team in the championship."
