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A move to change the eligibility criteria for the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship’s annual rookie test has fallen through after being rejected by three teams.
The proposal would have put more of an emphasis on fresh talent by preventing drivers with previous Formula E test sessions from participating.
The Race revealed last month that the 2021 test will take place at Valencia the day after the first E-Prix to be held in Spain on April 24. It will be the first time that the rookie session has not been held in Marrakesh.
Drivers who hold the eLicence required to contest official Formula E sessions are already barred from participating in the rookie test, which rules out teams’ reserves as they have to hold the licence in order to step in.
The focus of the recent team vote was on whether the rookie test should focus solely on those that have never driven a Formula E car in a competitive environment. The proposed wording would have prevented drivers who have already done more than two FE test days participating.
In a statement given to The Race upon request, the FIA said that “in order to help competitors to secure their reserve drivers nomination in these COVID times, the Sporting Working Group has agreed with the proposal to unlink the rookie test eligibility from the eLicence holding (which is a requirement for reserve drivers).
“The proposed formula was to limit the eligibility of the rookie test to those drivers who had never competed in Formula E races before or have never taken part in two or more official collective tests.”
As this would represent a change of the regulations, it required unanimous backing from all 12 teams.
An e-vote took place on February 11 and was issued after the Sporting Working Group later that week. Three competitors rejected the proposal and one declined to vote, meaning that the planned changes did not go through.
This means that drivers such as Sam Dejonghe and Mitsunori Takaboshi, who have taken part in all three of the previous rookie tests, are free to run again with Mahindra and Nissan e.dams respectively, should they be chosen.
But teams’ official reserve, test or development drivers are still barred because of the eLicence situation.
That rules out Porsche’s Simona de Silvestro (pictured below), who contested the 2015/16 FE season with Andretti Autosport, and DS Techeetah’s James Rossiter. Rossiter has never started an FE race, but had to activate his eLicence when he stood in for an unwell Jean-Eric Vergne in Marrakesh practice last year.
To be eligible for an eLicence, a driver must have started three FE races in the previous season or 10 over the previous three years, have previously held a superlicence, accumulated at least 20 superlicence points, or get FIA dispensation because they have “demonstrated outstanding ability in single-seater formula cars”.
The Race says:
There are several ways to look at what happened last month with the blocking of the revised rookie testing criteria – which was believed to have previously been agreed, at least in principal.
Three teams deciding to vote against the proposal indicates that perhaps commercial agreements with some drivers were already in place and in fact the motion was actually too late in being discussed.
With unanimity not forthcoming, teams are now able to use drivers who have previously appeared in the rookie test.
All Formula E teams must run two cars in the test, which has always been a mix of teams trying to get actual development work done, trying to assess potential future FE racers and in some cases putting high-profile racers from elsewhere in the car for publicity reasons.
The reason some of the teams want to use drivers with previous rookie test experience is to maximise their available testing time. As customer teams, Envision Virgin and Venturi have a much lower testing allowance than their manufacturer competitors, while other teams such as Dragon Penske have had very little testing with their newly-homologated hardware.
As revealed by The Race last month, W Series’ plan to run at Valencia the week after the Formula E rookie test has increased the chances of drivers from the all-female series getting FE test runs.
Williams Formula 1 development driver and inaugural W Series champion Jamie Chadwick has tested three times in Formula E for NIO and Jaguar but her single-seater stock dropped last season after an uncompetitive Formula Regional European Championship with Prema Powerteam, the team which took the title with Chadwick’s team-mate and sometime Venturi FE tester Arthur Leclerc.
Regular The Race columnist Alice Powell completed an FE test day for Envision Virgin Racing last March in Marrakesh, and is known to have impressed the team with her work.
Other W Series drivers with possibilities for appearances at Valencia are believed to be Marta Garcia, Emma Kimilainen and Beitske Visser.
However, with travel restrictions still compromising teams to some extent, most teams are believed to be opting for known testing quantities or experienced sportscar racers, meaning only one or two W Series drivers might get FE chances this time.
