Posted on 17th June 2016
It was announced this week that the Andretti Formula E team has completed the first on-track running of its 2016/17 powertrain.
After scrapping its first attempt at its own FE technology ahead of the current campaign, the American company’s Technologies arm has completed three days of testing so far with its new ATEC-02.
In an interview with the media this week, Andretti co-team principal Roger Griffiths stated that the team had successfully run at both qualifying and race power levels over the tests, the most recent of which was at Snetterton last week. Griffiths stated the following:-
We’ve now completed several hundreds of kilometres on the car, he said. So far the reliability of the car is very good – we completed a season’s worth of mileage on the dyno before we even ran the car on track, so the powertrain has proven to be robust.
“We’re much further ahead than we anticipated at this point – we could probably show up in London and it wouldn’t embarrass us.
With the abandoned ATEC-01 powertrain completed minimal running last year before hitting trouble in the public tests at Donington Park, Griffiths further said in his interview that the positive start to the current testing programme, which began with a shakedown in May, highlighted just how underprepared the team was before. Griffths added the following:-
The shakedown was very successful, we got through much more than we expected. That was a testament to the preparation we put in and how we approached this development. We were much more confident and much more ready. It shows we were a long way off going to Beijing with our own powertrain last year.
Griffiths has also said the design of the motor in the original powertrain suffered mechanical issues that had an adverse effect on the cooling system, and admitted the team underestimating the amount of software required to control the self-built motor.
Andretti opted to contest the 2015/16 FE campaign using the season-one Spark SRT_01E instead, while at the same time working on what Griffiths describes as a “fairly major redesign” for its 2016/17 powertrain, having split with erstwhile partner Houston Mechatronics.He would not reveal the specification of the new powertrain but said the package worked with the planned rear-end design for season two.
Current race driver Robin Frijns conducted one day with the new powertrain, running in a special testing livery dedicated to team partner TE Connectivity, with BMW GT driver Alexander Sims (pictured) also trying the car.
Griffiths would not comment on the remainder of the testing line-up or the team’s season-three driver pairing. But it has been rumoured on social media that the Andretti team has been linked to current Team Aguri ace and factory BMW driver Antonio Felix da Costa as part of a team tie-up with the German manufacturer.
Sarah Jones- @jonesy_laaa
