FIA has extended the deadline for the manufacturer to put in action the set of generation 3 rules for the 2022/2023 Formula E season. The manufacturers are now required to make the decisions at a board level by July 2021 opposed to earlier mentioned January 2021 deadline.
The change in time comes as a result of several meetings held by Formula E stakeholders during the lockdown period this year due to the covid-19 pandemic. The extension of time will mean the stakeholders will be able to manage themselves after months of lower sales and dwindling finances.
Frederic Bertrand who is the FIA Formula E Innovative Motor Sports Projects department director said the discussions between the Formula E stakeholders led to the consensus of time extension. He continued to add that the motivation behind the extension of the timeframe is to ensure that the manufacturers recover from the pandemic and come to a situation where the visibility of the business and confidence in thre tomorrow will be better.
“So we, first of all delayed the commitment period so that we can commit later in 21. No commitment is expected by the end of this year it will be more than the first part of 2021 where we start to commit from the beginning of 2021, but we will accept up to June 2021.”
It is also believed that the manufacturers will be expected to issue a purchase order before the end of 2021 besides budgeting for the development of their own cars, this comes as manufacturer Gen3 cars delivery is still fixed for January 2022 with race car deliveries still set for May 2022.
“Nobody has to put any money on the table before early 2022, and we understand that it still means that the manufacturer will have to go through validation process, presentation process through the boards and development process of their own cars but no cash is expected by the suppliers before 2022,” said Frederic Bertrand.
The status of the Formula E’s future is considered to be very strong as the sustainability relevance of formula E and substantial budget overlay has actually paid off. Additional manufacturers are also eyeing programmes for 2022 and 2023.
“We got strong support on all the current ones (manufacturers), and also good signals from potential newcomers thinking that the job done here was something interesting for them,” said Frederic.
