Why Formula E’s new sprint race may teach manufacturers less about road cars
Formula E’s E-Prix Unleashed will showcase everything GEN4 can do, but drivers say its energy-managed races may remain more useful for developing future EVs
Formula E’s new GEN4 car is considerably faster than its predecessor, but outright performance creates an unusual problem for the championship.
The technology most relevant to electric road cars is often demonstrated when drivers are forced to conserve energy, not when they simply drive as quickly as possible.
From the 2026/27 season, Formula E will address both sides of GEN4’s character using two race formats.
The new E-Prix Unleashed format will be a 30-minute sprint using GEN4’s high-downforce aerodynamic configuration, and it will feature a six-minute Attack Mode period and no mandatory Pit Boost stop.
The conventional E-Prix will last 45 minutes and use the low-downforce bodywork to reduce drag. It will also include eight minutes of Attack Mode and a mandatory Pit Boost stop.
E-Prix Unleashed: sprint to the end
Formula E says the shorter format has been designed to reveal GEN4’s raw performance, such as its permanent all-wheel-drive that produces up to 600kW (~815bhp) and its acceleration from 0-62mph in around 1.8 seconds.
“The GEN4 car is a brutal car from a performance point of view,” Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds told me at the Tokyo E-Prix. “We want to be able to show the car in its most powerful state.”
Less restraint, fewer lessons?
The sprint should make GEN4 easier to appreciate as a racing car. Qualifying position will become more important, energy conservation less prominent, and drivers will have greater freedom to exploit its speed.
However, Andretti Formula E driver Jake Dennis believes that may make the shorter race less useful for learning about efficiency.
“We only learn so much by driving flat out,” he explains. “You learn a small amount compared with what you learn through efficiency driving.”
More strategy, less brute force
During a traditional Formula E race, drivers begin with considerably less stored energy than the car will use before reaching the chequered flag.
The remainder must be recovered through regenerative braking, forcing teams to optimise the motor, inverter and energy-management software.
Drivers must also decide where to save that energy and where deploying it could help them overtake or defend their position, which are technical and strategic challenges with the clearest relevance to road-going EVs.
Dennis says having both formats is nevertheless a positive step.
“One is based on all-out performance and showing what the car is capable of,” he says. “The other is more about efficiency, manufacturers learning and what works best for road cars.”
Jeff Dodds: “The GEN4 car is brutal from a performance point of view”
Dodds makes a similar distinction. Formula E needs the sprint to demonstrate that an electric racing car can deliver extraordinary speed, but it cannot abandon the energy management that separates it from other championships.
“We’re an electric racing series,” he says. “It isn’t just about how fast you can go.”
“It is about how you manage and conserve energy, and how you recharge energy during the race. You can’t show that in a sprint race.”
E-Prix Unleashed may therefore teach manufacturers less about maximising range, but that is not necessarily a flaw.
GEN4 was designed to make Formula E’s performance impossible to dismiss, and the sprint gives it space to do precisely that.
The longer E-Prix can then tackle the harder and potentially more valuable question of how to achieve more with a limited quantity of energy.
Before GEN4 arrives, Formula E’s current GEN3 Evo car will make its swansong at the season-ending London E-Prix this weekend.
For more information, head over to Formula E.
