The NIO333 Formula E team has divulged details of its 2021 technical package as it continues to rebuild after being taken over by the Shanghai Lisheng Racing (SLR) company in September 2019.
The Race revealed last month that the NIO333 team is now under 100% control of SLR after the 10% acquired by the QEV Technologies technology company was absorbed recently.
The team has recently recruited several new engineers to replace those affiliated to QEV and begun testing of its new car in private testing held predominantly at Abingdon in the UK.
Oliver Turvey and Tom Blomqvist have conducted the testing in recent weeks, with the team saying it’s been averaging 181 miles of running per day.
Like all manufacturers NIO333 has a strict allocation of 13 days in addition to the three promoters’ days scheduled for the end of November at Valencia.
Its new powertrain includes key components from the Integral Powertrain company which has previously supplied Dragon and Nissan e.dams, and has been developed at the NIO333 R&D department in the UK.
The team describes it as “the greatest investment in the NIO333 FE Team by its new owners to date”.
The powertrain unit specifications include an efficiency calculation of >98.5% on race power at race settled temperature; 20krpm maximum revs; a maximum race cycle temperature of 95˚C (max operating temperature 200˚C); a powertrain cluster weight of 27kgs and an expected life of 50+ hours between service.
Team principal Christian Silk said the initial reliability of the package has “freed up engineering resource to focus on pure car performance”.
He added: “Initial driver feedback has been positive both in terms of car balance, consistency and pace.
“After Berlin we knew we had several areas to focus on, and the hard work being put in by the team to resolve these issues is really paying off in terms of driver comments and the data collected from the car.”
NIO333 failed to score a point all season in the 2019/20 campaign, although Turvey did finish eighth on the road in Santiago only to suffer a post-race penalty.
Vincent Wang, CEO of NIO333, said that the team’s inexperience last season – “using an old motor package to get us through the year” – showed that it knew “its strengths and weaknesses and we are working swiftly to address them.
“We have ambitious plans for 2021 and are building up not only the technical side of the NIO333 FE team to improve our on-track performance, but also our operational side in both the UK and China.”
The team has retained continuity in its senior departments with Michael Henderson staying on as chief race engineer overall and Roberto Costa as team manager.
