Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and also CEO of Ferrari, has hinted at the possibility of the Italian manufacturer considering a future move into Formula E. Sergio Marchionne told FIA publication Auto that he believes Ferrari “needs” some kind of participation in the all-electric single-seater championship:
“We need to be involved in Formula E because electrification via hybridisation is going to be part of our future. Hybridisation is crucial to Ferrari. There is no denying that regulations put us under pressure, but we could reach those targets in other ways. The challenge is to benefit from hybridisation not just in terms of emissions reduction, but also performance. We have already developed a hybrid supercar, La Ferrari, and on future Ferrari models we will leverage new technologies as well as electrification.” – Ferrari president said, as reported yesterday by German publication Auto, Motor und Sport.
The Italian-Canadian executive has previously said Ferrari would not enter Formula E until its technical regulations were relaxed in order to allow manufacturers greater freedom to develop the cars and also criticised the current race structure under which drivers use two cars per race, swapping them at half-distance. Last week Formula E officially announced which manufactures will participate in its fifth championship, that will begin in 2018. Renault, BMW, Jaguar, DS Automobiles, Penske, Mahindra, ABT, Venturi and NextEV were all granted entries. The series will also use new standard batteries developed by McLaren Applied Technologies which are intended to eliminated the need to change cars mid-race.
Scuderia Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel has previously said that he is not a fan of Formula E. When the championship was launched back in 2013, Sebastian explained that he “did not like it at all” and recently confirmed that he would like Formula One to reintroduce V12 engines in the competition.
Leave a Reply