As reported by the FIA, the registrations have been validated for the Formula E outfits competing in the 2018/19 ABB FIA Formula E Championship. And for the first time in the series history, the number of teams has increased from ten to eleven; with 22 cars taking to the track on the Season Five grid, beginning at Ad Diriyah in Saudi Arabia on 15 December.
HWA is the only fully-fledged new team for the upcoming campaign and will be a Venturi customer outfit when Season Five gets underway. The German-based team will be replaced by Mercedes when they enter the all-electric racing series for Season Six. So it is widely expected that Mercedes-affiliated drivers will join the HWA squad for the upcoming campaign when it begins in December.
Joining HWA for next season is Nissan e.dams, who have replaced Renault e.dams between Season Four and Five. The Japanese outfit have confirmed that Sebastien Buemi will be racing for them for Season Five, but are yet to confirm their second driver. It is expected that a Japanese racer will join Buemi, with obvious marketing benefits associated with that ahead of a widely anticipated Tokyo E-Prix in 2020.
German Automotive giant BMW are entering the series for this campaign in partnership with the Andretti Formula E team. Hence, they have been renamed BMW Andretti Motorsport for the upcoming season with at least one BMW works driver in either their DTM or World Endurance Championship programs anticipated to make the switch to Formula E.
In other news, it has been confirmed that Virgin Racing will be using Audi power-trains for next season following their split from DS Automobiles, who have joined forces with Techeetah for the upcoming season.
They are joined by the usual array of manufacturer teams: Audi, Venturi, Panasonic Jaguar Racing, Nio, Mahindra and Dragon Racing for the season ahead. The full list can be seen on the FIA website, with the link provided above.
Official pre-season testing will take place at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia between 16-19 October, where all of the Formula E Gen2 cars will be in action together for the first time.
