Formula 2 race winner Zane Maloney will be the only full debutant on the 2024-25 Formula E grid after receiving an offer to drive for the Lola-Yamaha-powered Abt team - which is talking about Maloney as a likely long-term star in the world championship.
Maloney, who is also a Sauber Formula 1 reserve, was the driver most likely to cross over from peripheral F1 aspirant to full-time Formula E driver after it became clear that Felipe Drugovich and Robert Shwartzman were not prepared to accept offers in the electric championship.
The 20-year-old's move should be viewed as a wholly positive one for the world championship right now.
That's because, along with full-season rookie Taylor Barnard (also 20) recently being announced as a McLaren driver, not only is the average age of drivers coming down but Formula E’s future star-making capability that burned brightest for 2023 champion Jake Dennis in recent years is being maintained.
Current F2 title protagonist Maloney tested the Lola Gen3 Evo development car at Varano in Italy earlier this month after being offered the seat alongside Lucas di Grassi and is known to have impressed Abt before putting pen to paper on a deal that makes him the second youngest Formula E driver after Barnard.
The Barbadian national has been racing for the Rodin Motorsport squad in what is his third F2 season. He won both races at the Bahrain season opener and currently sits third in the standings, 34.5 points behind leader Gabriel Bortoleto.
Maloney had been weighing up his options for 2025 in recent months, having tested for the Rahal Letterman Lanigan team in IndyCar last month during the long, five-week summer break for the F2 series.
Speaking to The Race last week, Maloney said that in terms of a career decision he had always been open to working with a manufacturer and establishing a professional career off the F1 path.
"When you're coming up the feeder series in F4, F3, F2 you're paying a team to run a car, and you try to get with the best team to be at the front," he said.
"But it's an amazing opportunity to now be employed by a manufacturer, many massive and amazing companies, to be able to drive for them and really be part of a team as an employee was a big goal of mine when I started out racing developing together.
"It's a different step in my career and I definitely think it's a step up, a step forward and I'm looking forward to also maturing as a driver and a human being, and to be able to work with so many people, to bring a car to the front of the grid."
Maloney has reasonable experience of Formula E machinery, having been a reserve and development driver for the Andretti team since the end of 2023. He first ran for Andretti in the Berlin rookie test earlier that year before conducting further running in the Rome (2023) and Misano (2024) extra practice sessions, as well as making another appearance at the Berlin test in May this year.
Abt had been in talks with several drivers in recent months after knowing that Nico Mueller had signed a deal to race for Andretti, as part of his new Porsche factory driver status.
Why Abt targeted Maloney
The likes of Dan Ticktum, now ex-Nissan driver Sacha Fenestraz, Shwartzman and Frederik Vesti are among those known to have held talks with Abt and Lola-Yamaha.
Ticktum looks set to remain at ERT for a fourth season and could be joined by Fenestraz, who is presently in talks with ERT as he attempts to stay on in Formula E after recently being released by Nissan.
Ferrari F1 reserve Shwartzman is widely believed to be on his way to IndyCar for a probable seat at new entrant Prema alongside recent signing Callum IIott, while Mercedes F1 junior Vesti is likely to expand his endurance racing career beyond his present European Le Mans Series programme.
When Mueller told the Abt team at the end of June that he would not be renewing his contract, the 2016-17 teams' champion was a little exposed as to who could replace the driver that had delivered the vast majority of its points last season.
Abt has an array of drivers in its wider stable, such as DTM duo Ricardo Feller and Kelvin van der Linde, who have some Formula E experience - Feller having tested in Berlin in May and van der Linde having contested five E-Prixs for the team. Additionally, Formula 3 driver Tim Tramnitz is known to the team after completing several tests.
But none of them are believed to have been particularly high on the agenda for Abt, with van der Linde (pictured above) believed to be in the running for a Hypercar sportscar seat in 2025, Feller staying in the DTM, and Tramnitz continuing his association with Red Bull and sticking with the junior single-seater ladder.
The experienced options that were open to Abt - both Ticktum and Fenestraz - were possibilities, with each having been in contact with the team until mid-August. But Abt specifically wanted to invest in youth and saw Maloney.
Several rookies were approached, among them the aforementioned Shwartzman and Vesti, but it was Maloney who was ultimately favoured after an evaluation of his F2 performances as well as some consultation with Andretti's senior team.
He is highly rated by Andretti for his attitude and desire to learn about Formula E over the last 18 months with the team. Had it not been for Mueller essentially being placed there, it is possible that Maloney would have replaced the outgoing Norman Nato for next season.
Andretti's loss is therefore now Abt's gain.
And Maloney could be stepping into the perfect environment too with an ambitious new manufacturer in Lola-Yamaha, no immediate pressure to gain results, and a solid platform with which to impress at a team that is proven as both a championship-winning outfit (in 2016-17) and an entity that can punch well above its collective weight.
The start of a youth movement?
Formula E has sporadically had young drivers heading up through the ranks who have landed in the series but often they have moved on.
The notable example is Felix Rosenqvist, who at the age of 25 burned brightly with Mahindra between 2016-18 before heading off to IndyCar with Chip Ganassi Racing.
Mitch Evans was 22 when he joined Jaguar in 2016 and Nick Cassidy was 26 when he made his debut at Envision in 2020. Both quickly established themselves among Formula E's best drivers, not just as race winners but serious title contenders, and in 2024 helped Jaguar secure the teams' title.
Maximilian Guenther, Sergio Sette Camara and Ticktum were all F2 refugees when they arrived in Formula E, so Maloney's and Barnard's arrival should hardly be a surprise. But the fact Abt eschewed experience to sign Maloney points to a renewed thirst for youth in the series.
"How a lot of the media sees F1, Formula E, IndyCar, also WEC is that F1 is the pinnacle and everything else is a disappointment," he said.
"Many things can happen throughout the years, so I think it's important to understand that to get a Formula E drive is, as well, almost impossible: it's very, very difficult and that's why you don't see many drivers from F2 just yet come over to Formula E.
"It's not because they don't want to, but because it's so tough to get a seat in motorsport now where you're getting paid as a professional.
"In F2 there's amazing drivers, amazing teams, but we're all paying to be there in some way, shape or form. There's not many seats on a Formula E grid, Formula 1 grid, IndyCar grid. So, I think you'll start to see more and more of the good drivers start to get those seats that they deserve.
"But right now, it's very tough, so that's why I'm very grateful for this opportunity, and I'm going to take it with both hands."
