Why Jaguar Racing is going electric for Formula E

“One really cool thing is the way Formula E is going about it,” he continues. “It has all the traditional motorsport features, but the racing is in city centres. Silverstone and the traditional tracks are wonderful, but you’ve got to get there. Many people in the city don’t get the chance to go to traditional tracks.”

Persuading major cities to stage motor racing on their streets is no small challenge, but Barclay says they are keen to have them as they move towards electrification. “That’s helped the championship to develop quite rapidly,” he adds.

Jaguar is developing its cars in league with Williams Advanced  Engineering, the technology arm of the group that already has extensive electrification expertise developed by the Williams F1 team. More than that, all of the cars on the Formula E grid use a Williamsengineered battery pack, which will be used until season five.

Another attraction for Jaguar is that the technology rules for the coming season are freer than before. “The relevance is not just hardware but also optimising regeneration and getting the most out of the battery in an intense environment with huge performance requirements,” explains Barclay. “These are very interesting areas of development.”

Besides this development, Jaguar has some catching up to do. Its rivals have already completed two seasons, so the shakedown tests we’re seeing at Donington Park are even more vital, despite the track’s lack of resemblance to any street circuit. In the pit garage, the two elegantly liveried Jaguars look much like conventional, 21st century singleseat racers, if a little unsophisticated in the aero department. The cars are surrounded by the paraphernalia of a modern, professional race team: dryice blowers lightly roar into the car’s air intakes and assorted uniformed personnel dart about while multiple umbilical cords supply energy to the car and download data to rows of laptops at the back of the pit.

Although Formula E has been around for a couple of years, it’s still a surprise to see a single-seat racer that makes so little noise. When it departs, you hear little more than an urgent whine. From a distance, your ear could confuse it with a mobility scooter – but not when you see the car on the track. The whine turns more urgent, the cars look quick and on today’s drizzle-sheened track you can see that keeping the wheels in line demands concentration.

So does the driver’s management of the race. “The driver has a huge amount to do,” says Barclay. Battery conservation plays a large part, with the driver needing to trade coasting, regenerative braking and accelerating with staying in the race and getting to the end, and all with a car swap in between. “You can end up needing 3% to finish but only have 4% left, so you have to back off and defend,” says Barclay. That all adds excitement, although it highlights what undeniably remains one of the flaws of electric cars and, more positively, the reason to fast-track their development.

 “We have real expertise in electrification already,” says Barclay. “We will have engineers embedded in the team who are part of the R&D department. The race team has direct links, so each can benefit from their key learnings. It doesn’t always happen, but we feel it can and there will be a free flow of information.