Formula E held its annual pre-season tests in Valencia earlier this month, and with the tests completed, BMW i Andretti Motorsport topped the timing sheets with Maximilian Günther setting the fastest time of the week at the Circuit Ricardo Tomo.
Günther managed to lap the circuit with a very impressive time of 1:11.760 in the new BMW iFE.21, with his teammate Jake Dennis clocking a time of 1:12.047. The team did a total of over 500 laps over the course of 3 days of testing.
“It is obviously great to have set the fastest time of the week again, as we did last year,” stated Günther on his fantastic achievement that weekend.
“Having said that, the focus of the tests was not on lap times. We were fully focussed on completing our programme, and we did a good job of that. We had worked very hard and well in the run-up to this test. Here at Valencia, we took the opportunity to try some different things with the new car. I think we did a very good job.”
“I think we can be happy with our performance during this test,” said his Formula E rookie teammate Dennis. “The car seems to be working well. Personally, I was able to adapt to the specific demands of Formula E very quickly. I familiarised myself with the software and all the other processes, so that I now feel far better prepared for the first race in Santiago. I am now very much looking forward to my first race in January.”
BMW i Andretti Autosport’s Team Principal Roger Griffiths was also very happy with how things went that weekend. “All in all we are very happy with the way things have been running here. It’s always nice to be on top of the timing sheets at the end, but we don’t get any points in the championship for that. It’s all about the work that we accomplished in the last few days and we really had no hold-ups and reliability issues at all.
“Maximilian Günther has obviously carried his speed from season six over into season seven. We are also very pleased with the way Jake Dennis has progressed over the course of the test. He gave us very good feedback and got up to speed very quickly.”
Season 7 will be BMW’s last season in Formula E, following its decision to pull out of the series after 2021 to focus on its efforts with mass-market electric cars. This came at the same time as Audi announced its decision to pull out of Formula E to focus on the new LMDh endurance racing regulations, as well as an attempt at the 2022 Dakar Rally. It is currently unknown whether Andretti Autosport will carry on in Formula E, either as a privateer team or with the backing of another manufacturer.
