One of the senior figures in the Porsche Formula E team has this week left his position after tendering his resignation recently.
Amiel Lindesay, who held the role of head of operations at the team since its inception in 2018, worked at his final race for the team at the 2022 opener in Saudi Arabia last week.
Porsche had a mixed start to the 2022 season with a disastrous first race on Friday when Andre Lotterer went from third place to 13th after a miscalculation from the team on energy targets, following the only safety car of the race that triggered the first-ever extra time period of five minutes and 15 seconds.
The Race understands that this played no part in Lindesay’s departure from the team and that his decision was for personal reasons and made before the start of the 2021-22 season.
The Race also understands that Lindesay has not left Porsche Motorsport and that he is expected to take up an alternative position in the company shortly.
The Kiwi was one of the key staffers on Porsche’s first all-electric motorsport project and was active from the very start when he would often attend races in the 2018-19 season in preparation for Porsche’s entry for the 2019-20 campaign.
He operationally directed the first two seasons in Formula E along with technical chiefs Malte Huneke and then Martin Fuchtner, as well as head of team management and business relations of Porsche Motorsport Carlo Wiggers.
They in turn were overseen by head of factory motorsport Pascal Zurlinden before he himself resigned, again for reported personal reasons, last October.
Porsche announced that it had recruited ex-Audi, ABT and BMW engineer Florian Modlinger last month. He will fill a role similar to the one Zurlinden worked in although it will be confined to Formula E, unlike Zurlinden, who worked across all Porsche’s factory motorsport programmes.
Modlinger will take over Lindesay’s responsibilities within the team from this month’s Mexico E-Prix onwards.
He recently joined the Multimatic engineering company as director of performance engineering for its special vehicle operations division, who ironically are partnered with Porsche as a development arm for its new LMDh sportscar challenger that recently began testing.
Porsche accrued 14 points from the second Diriyah race last week with Andre Lotterer and Pascal Wehrlein finishing fourth and ninth.
The 2021-22 season marks Porsche’s third year in Formula E and it has achieved four podium positions and two pole positions but has yet to claim a victory after 28 races.
New Porsche Motorsport vice president Thomas Laudenbach told The Race last weekend in Diriyah that the teams’ goals this season are to claim a first victory and to be able to challenge for titles.
“I think we’ve got the performance; I think we’ve got the level,” said Laudenbach.
“So, the goal for us must be to win races and to be able to fight for the championship.
“I know it’s very strong competition and I’m not saying this is exactly what’s going to happen, that would be stupid.
“But if I would set a goal and I would really say we want to win races and we want to have a number one on the podium.
“I think that’s important for the team and yes hopefully able to fight for the championship and this, this would be something I would be happy with.”
