Porsche has announced their first driver for the ABB FIA Formula E Championship.
The German car manufacturer will enter the series from Season 6, i.e. the one starting fall/winter 2019. That leaves the team with about eight months to test and develop, before the homologation will be locked for the season.
A well-known face in the team, Neel Jani, will do the first testing of the car, and then go on to race in the 2019/20 season. The second driver in the team hasn’t been announced just yet – but a good guess would be Brendon Hartley, who still is a Porsche factory driver, and a very competent choice, with all his Porsche 919 Hybrid, and during the last year or so, Toro Rosso Formula 1 experience.
Jani won both the 24 Hours of Le Mans plus the FIA World Endurance Championship title in 2016, and did the 2017 season too, before the team closed its doors.
The Swiss driver then went on to have a deal with Rebellion Racing, in their privateer LMP1 car, but kept the Porsche factory driver business card, and has participated in various Porsche events throughout 2018. It was him beating the lap record at Spa Francorchamps in the spring of 2018, with the modified Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo, which went on to do the fastest ever lap around the Nürburgring Nordschleife with Timo Bernhard behind the wheel.
The testing with the new Gen 2 car will soon start for Porsche Motorsport and Neel Jani.