The Unbearable Lightness of Being André Lotterer
In a photo that recently found its way onto Instagram, there is a group of Formula E drivers, sitting on a motorboat with a group of young women. Sitting back, smiling, but still managing to look ill-at-ease on the right, slightly removed from the group, was André Lotterer. He looked like a friend in an ensemble comedy. Perhaps even a Friend.
The Porsche Formula E driver is an enigma, wrapped in a riddle, wrapped in a very fast driver. As the marque prepares to enter Formula E as a full-time race outfit, Season 6 represents a golden opportunity for the 37-year-old to show conclusively that he deserves to be considered among the elite of the category.
It was perhaps inevitable that, in a Techeetah team in which Jean-Eric Vergne, quite possibly the greatest Formula E driver of the first five seasons, and a shareholder, was ensconced as lead driver, Lotterer would spend most of his time performing backup. There have, of course, been times when Lotterer could challenge Vergne, but over the vast majority of races, the Frenchman has held the advantage.
After it became quite obvious that they got along superbly, the two Techeetah drivers were the subject of a long-running ‘bromance’ narrative, spun in no little part by the team, in which they were given the collective name ‘Jeandre’ and were often photographed doing innocent things together, like running through fountains shirtless.
Perhaps the apogee of ‘Jeandre’ content was the Instagram Story that Vergne posted in Santiago, where he appeared to be alone in his hotel room bed, but then panned his phone round to show a sheepish Lotterer, grinning, with the explanation that he had booked a hotel room for the following month by accident. It was the moment when a lot of painstakingly assembled fanfiction suddenly appeared subtler than the sledgehammer of real-life social media posts.
If this attention made Lotterer uncomfortable, he did not show it, with he and Vergne playing up to an off-track image of being best buddies, at least until New York, when it was an open secret in the paddock that Porsche had bought out Lotterer’s Techeetah contract for 2020 and had signed him to join Neel Jani. The well-meaning establishment of Lotterer and Vergne as the sport’s Morecambe and Wise didn’t always show Lotterer in the best light, the older driver being placed in some video content more reminiscent of One Direction than of a three-time Le Mans winner, and a hard-bitten competitor in the WEC and, briefly, Formula One. It would not be a surprise if Lotterer took the decision to move to Porsche partly to establish himself, in the latter years of his single-seater career, as a leading contender to be taken seriously.
Multiple Strengths
Lotterer has many strengths he brings on his return to the Porsche stable, not least the ability to identify his own limitations and mitigate them quickly. Following a difficult start in Formula E in 2017–18, in which Lotterer finished 13th in Mexico City and 12th in Punta del Este, a mental switch was flicked, and he used Techeetah’s simulator copiously in order to discover what he was doing wrong. The result was third in Berlin, then points in the five final rounds. He was well behind his champion team-mate, but André was showing the quality needed to contribute to the Teams’ Championship. He carried that form into the most recent season, with a few excellent results, such as second in Rome (in a race where he was beaten into second by Mitch Evans), and what would have been a win in Hong Kong except for Sam Bird puncturing Lotterer’s tyre.
The aftermath of Hong Kong showed the belligerent side of Lotterer, as he and Techeetah requested that the FIA stewards consider a harsher punishment for Bird than the five seconds that had dropped him to sixth. The race result was put back due to the discussion of this, and it led to a souring of relations between Lotterer and the British driver. Followed, as it was, by Lotterer responding to a press conference question about the incident by saying Bird had left voicemails but he had not listened to them, the matter demonstrated a willingness to hold a grudge, even when it might be easier not to.
At Porsche, which has a clean-cut corporate image and will want the spotlight to be on performance and quiet progress in the first season, Lotterer will have to show he is not only a driver who has aggression to spare, but also someone who has the ability to build a team around him and use his Formula E experience (Neel Jani, latterly an endurance specialist, has only driven in one Formula E race meeting to date) to take the mantle of team leader. It’s a more demanding position to be in, requiring a greater sense of responsibility in how he approaches a race weekend than at Techeetah. The occasional inconsistencies we have seen in qualifying will not fly this time around — he will need to be banging in the times on demand.
Since joining Techeetah, Lotterer has shown hardened racecraft by the truckload, knowing, more often than not, when to get his elbows out and when to focus on energy-racing. The elephant in the room is that his racecraft was too often needed because he found himself in the crowded midfield when his team-mate was battling at the front. The other side of that particular coin is that Lotterer was in title contention last season until New York race one, and when JEV was embroiled in a number of often avoidable incidents in the midfield, Lotterer was often the Techeetah driver fighting at the front. Still, there has been no visit to the top step of the podium. That lack of a win will irk Lotterer, and is arguably another reason why he has opted to switch teams.
Start From Zero
Whether or not Lotterer makes a success of the coming season will be decided not only by the Belgian-German, but by Porsche’s level of competitiveness. The marque enters Formula E with plenty of experience of the car it is running, having been testing it with Jani and Brendon Hartley through much of 2019. They took a gamble on what they have called the “Start from Zero” approach, in a clear swipe at Mercedes, who sent out partner outfit HWA for an iffy year’s bedding-in, running Venturi powertrains.
Which approach will turn out to be the right one? It might be that Porsche have hit upon the ideal preparation, in that the powertrain is the differentiator between Formula E cars, and while they were running theirs, Mercedes were also testing their new design, but HWA was running that customer unit, compromising what they could learn technically in race conditions. Although HWA’s crew will largely be carried over to Mercedes in an arrangement similar to when the Abt Schaeffler team became an official Audi Sport operation, familiarity and operational efficiency will not be an issue for Porsche, many of whose staff worked together on the 919 Hybrid World Endurance Championship car.
The truth is Porsche will view the 2019–20 season as a learning year. Having gone all-in on Formula E, with a huge marketing outlay and as much carried over from the sportscar programme as is allowed, in the long term a title will be expected. The catch, for Lotterer as well as Jani, might be that they have to put up with being behind the established pacesetters for at least the first part of the upcoming season.
For Lotterer, regardless of Porsche’s readiness to win, this will be a test of his ability to transcend light entertainment, and become the romantic lead.
