Formula E

10 years of e-Formel.de - we celebrate our anniversary & electric motorsport

Timo Pape

Timo Pape

Hard to believe, but true: e-Formel.de is ten years old this Thursday. We would like to toast the past decade with you and look back - because a lot has happened during this time!

On 13 June 2014, the motorsport world looked a little different. Lewis Hamilton won his first Formula 1 world championship with Mercedes, and electric racing did not yet exist. But there was a crazy idea called Formula E - even if only on paper. As there was no (German) news platform for this new world, a blog went online exactly a decade ago to collate the information that was already out there.

About three months before the start of Formula E, not too much was known, but a few driver names and teams were. Not all of them would actually be on the grid on 13 September 2014, such as the chrome-green car from Drayson Racing. The first fans jumped on the Formula E bandwagon, some of whom are still with us today (<3). We also came into contact with the first industry representatives.

After a night shift, the first e-Formel.de live ticker was up and running just in time for the debut race in Beijing. To date, we have covered 128 races in our ticker - including all sessions. We are also proud of our podcast tradition: a total of 334 episodes of our (mostly) weekly ePod have now been published. The centrepiece has always been the news though: To date, we have published a good 6,500 articles in German alone. Not to mention countless posts on our various social media channels.

Sweet memories

The Gen1 era holds many special memories. For example, the first race in Beijing with the spectacular Heidfeld-Prost crash on the last corner. Our first visits to the race track. The build-up of the e-Formel.de editorial team. The annual meetings with the Formula E community at the Berlin E-Prix. We remember legendary duels between Lucas di Grassi and Sebastien Buemi, the first champion Nelson Piquet jr. and true racing highlights such as the 2018 Zurich E-Prix.

Slowly but surely, there was a major manufacturer boom. Formula E exploded - look on the German market alone: Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Porsche. The electric series also attracted attention with its timelessly beautiful Gen2 car. The first other electric series were launched, but struggled in the following years: Extreme E, MotoE, Pure ETCR, Rallycross and others. We reported on all of them.

Deep valleys

Then came the deep coronavirus valley. Formula E not only lost its live events, but also manufacturers, partners and momentum as a result. It was a similar story for us. But we carried on and are now one of the very few independent Formula E media outlets left in the world that was already there at the time. It wasn't always just about profitability, but above all about passion for the cause.

You can probably feel that, because over the years we have been able to rely on you as a steadily growing readership. You have always remained loyal to us - thank you for that. But above all, we couldn't do it without an outstanding editorial team, the many international colleagues and the partners who have supported us over the years, mostly on a long-term basis. Thank you all - you are part of e-Formel.de.

Continuous change

Today, things are slowly picking up again. We have been present on the global market for more than a year with our English-language sister site e-Formula.news. Formula E itself has also changed in recent years, especially in the Gen3 era. Classic racetracks and slipstream battles are now part of everyday life. The series is changing.

The technical development of Formula E should be emphasised though as the changes in the last decade have been truly remarkable: from the car change in season 1 to the all-wheel drive system that is coming next season. The prospects for the Gen4 era are even brighter. Whether we can still be there in the same form as today also depends on you readers, because we need you more than ever.

If you value e-Formel.de / e-Formula.news and consume it regularly, we ask you to support us through our supporter model. If every reader contributed just one euro per month, our position would be completely different. We could offer you even more content. We are counting on you and hope to be there for you for a long time to come.

But now let's raise our glasses - to a successful future!

Timo

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