BMW has presented their new car for the upcoming ABB FIA Formula E Championship 2018/19 season.
They had a big press conference in Stuttgart, where the cover was pulled off their brand new BMW iFE.18 car.
The car is the first Gen-2 car, that is shown in its full race design.
BMW i Andretti Motorsport will be the team name for the season, and will run two cars. Andretti Autosport has been in Formel E since the very first season, and has worked together with BMW for the last few seasons.
BMW has developed a brand new driveline for the new car, which amongst other things, has been fitted with a HALO.
Antonio Felix da Costa will race for the team again, and has raced in Formula E since the very first season. He will continue in car number 28.
Car number 27 will be for the new Formula E driver, Alexander Sims. He has been a BMW factory driver for the last three seasons, and was the first driver alongside Connor De Phillippi, to win in their latest BMW M8 GTE car.
Even though Andretti Autosport will partner with BMW, we won’t see team owner Michael Andretti in an active role in the programme. Instead it will be Roger Griffiths, who will continue in the position that he has been in for the last two seasons.
The cars will be faster this season compared to last year, plus the cars will run the full race, so we won’t have the dangerous car swaps halfway through the race. We saw a lot of incidents in the 2017/18, plus there was suspension about drivers racing without all their belts in place. We saw Daniel Abt having to pit during one round, when his seat belt wasn’t fitted properly, and he chose to pit since he found it too dangerous to continue.
The 2018/19 ABB FIA Formula E Championship season will start on 15 December in Saudi Arabia.