Mortara sticking with Mahindra for the long haul

Seven years on from his Formula E debut, Edoardo Mortara has firmly established himself as one of the top names in the series. Having previously been a part of the Venturi project as it grew into a title challenger – he finished second in the 2020-21 season and third the year after – he’s now embarking on a similar journey with Mahindra.

“During my entire career I’ve always chosen these kinds of projects,” Mortara tells RACER. “There have been times where I was offered some, I guess, more comfortable situations, where the team was already performing. But for me, I find that you have more rewards with a team maybe struggling at the beginning, then altogether you’re achieving better results. It’s definitely something that is very cool.”

Despite near-misses and a near-decade stay in the championship, Mortara is far from done. He wants to claim that elusive world championship title and while he believes that Mahindra certainly has the potential to compete at the sharp end of Formula E again, it’ll require more than just a good car to get the job done.

“I definitely see this team, if it continues like this, I’m 110 percent sure that it will compete for better results,” he says. “Whether they will end up winning the championship I don’t know, and how much time it will take and whether it’s gonna be with me or not, this is something also that I don’t know.

“I’ll be happy to challenge for a championship in Formula E again. But in order to fight for a title, you need to have all the planets aligned. It’s an entire package. You need to be having the right things at the right moment, you obviously need the drivers to do their part at the right moment.”

Mortara’s Mahindra team is enjoying something of a renaissance this year, with its best start to a season in the GEN3 era, and its first with points in each of the first five races. It’s a marked difference from Mortara’s first season with the team.

“You can definitely tell that we are moving in the right direction, achieving better results,” he says. “We were starting from a difficult place, but I must say that the team has been working really well for the last year and a half to develop everything from a software and hardware point of view.”

It hasn’t just been with the car where the team has made a step forward. A cultural shift in the organization has also been paying off.

“One of the strengths that I see in Mahindra compared to the teams that I was before is probably the atmosphere,” Mortara says. “We have very good engineers, but on top of that, the environment is good. You don’t have so many ups and downs in terms of emotions. Everybody’s very much focused on the job, not really being critical to other team members.

“There is also no figure pointing when we’re having difficult times, and this is also key to improving situations we go through. In the more difficult times, all together trying to understand what we can do as a group, what we can do better, and we don’t really blame individuals.”

Of course, in less than two years, Formula E will introduce its GEN4 ruleset. It could be an opportunity for Mahindra to take another big step, but Mortara is keen to not get ahead of himself just yet. The new formula will bring with it plenty of unknowns, not just at Mahindra, but throughout the field.

“It’s a little bit early, you know, to speak about that,” he says, “but definitely, in Formula E, the work that you’re doing on these cars, the software that you’re going to use, it’s something that you can often use with the next cars.

“The level is extremely high. All these teams have people with a lot of knowledge, a lot of experience.”