Formula E car destroyed in Evo Sessions crash: How many clicks is a human life worth?

DTM champion Ayhancan Güven is currently not allowed to drive a Formula E car in competition. The 28-year-old does not yet fulfil the strict requirements of the FIA. This stipulates that even professional racing drivers with an international A licence and platinum rating must also demonstrate success in certain racing series. No such restrictions applied to the Evo Sessions, which recently took place in Jeddah, where some influencers drove without any motorsport background. A dangerous game with the safety of all those involved, as Tobias Wirtz finds.

Motorsport is dangerous. That was true more than 100 years ago and is still written on tickets and entrances to racetracks today. That's why not everyone is allowed to take part in a race: Drivers must prove a certain level of qualification by means of a licence system. A national racing licence, for example via the DMSB as the national sports authority, can be obtained with little effort and usually a one-day training course. To be able to drive in Formula E, drivers need an e-licence, which requires several years of experience and success in clearly defined racing series - predominantly in formula racing.

Ayhancan Güven is currently experiencing this first-hand: The 2025 DTM champion is keen to compete for the second Porsche works team in the upcoming Formula E season after a convincing performance at the rookie test in Berlin. However, the FIA's requirements are strict: the Turkish driver must fulfil the requirements by then. He would not have been able to achieve this in the DTM, which is why Porsche is putting him in the Manthey Racing LMGT3 cockpit in the WEC World Endurance Championship this year. Should Güven become champion or runner-up here together with Timur Boguslawski and James Cottingham, he will be allowed to drive Formula E in the 2026/27 season.

High hurdles that a driver has to overcome to drive the electric cars in the racing series. But not without reason: after all, these are the FIA formula racing cars with the fastest acceleration, even ahead of Formula 1. 60 mph from a standing start is reached in just 1.85 seconds, and the racing series also repeatedly advertises that the cars are capable of speeds of up to 200 mph. A speed that no Formula E car has ever reached before - but that's a whole other story.

With this in mind, the concept of the Evo Sessions should certainly give pause for thought: After a short preparation time, ten influencers were placed in a Gen3 Evo car from each team and - similar to the Formula E qualifying format - raced against each other over a fast lap. The racing series repeatedly advertised the Evo Sessions in its broadcasts, and the influencer duels were even shown live on the Formula E YouTube channel.

The whole thing didn't happen on a race track with large run-off areas, but between the narrow concrete walls of Jeddah, where the 20 drivers in the racing series had competed the day before. The result: there were several accidents, including an extremely serious one. Fortunately, Izzy Hammond survived the crash in the Lola Yamaha ABT, normally driven by Zane Maloney, unharmed. The high-speed impact is said to have exerted forces of around 24 g on Hammond.

Lola Yamaha ABT: "Car has to be rebuilt"

"Unfortunately, the majority of the car was damaged in the crash and needs to be rebuilt," said a team spokeswoman when asked by e-Formula.news. Among other things, this involves the powertrain that was used by Maloney in the official races this season, as confirmed by the team. "All of the parts were the ones declared in the FIA Technical Passport for the Jeddah races."

The problem: According to the regulations, the team is not actually allowed to change these parts beyond the specified quota without being relegated to the following race in Madrid. However, provision has already been made in advance and the teams have been allowed to rebuild the cars in the factory without penalty under FIA supervision. "As per the agreement with both the FIA and Formula E, we are allowed to replace all parts without penalties. The FIA and Formula E inspected the car in Jeddah and the FIA will also come to Kempten during the rebuild of the car."

A cost estimate is not yet possible, Lola Yamaha ABT continues. "It is not appropriate to quantify the cost of the damage incurred due to the number of variables, but all costs will be incurred by Formula E as part of the agreement for Evo Sessions between the Teams and the Championship." However, given the team's description, it is difficult to imagine that the amount of damage is not at least in the high six-figure range.

When asked by e-Formula.news, the FIA emphasised that it was neither involved nor responsible in any way for the Evo Sessions: "This was a promotional activity organised by Formula E Promoter together with SAMF (Saudi Arabia Motor Federation), the local National Sporting Authority. It was not in any way connected from a regulatory standpoint with the FIA or the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship."

Commentary by Tobias Wirtz

I actually wanted to completely ignore the Formula E Evo Sessions. Not just me personally, but also us as editors in our reporting on e-Formula.news. For me, it's just a fun event where a few (mainly British) influencers get to drive Formula E cars. The sporting relevance on a scale of 0 to 10: about minus 10, but what happened in Saudi Arabia still compels me to express my opinion.

In theory, the idea behind the Evo Sessions sounds promising at first: the aim is to attract new fans to Formula E through people with a wide reach outside their own bubble. In practice, however, it fails miserably. You put ten people, some of whom have absolutely no motorsport experience, in one of the most complex racing cars on the planet and let them compete against each other in a time trial on one of the fastest street circuits in the world - what could possibly go wrong?

Whoever came up with this idea at Formula E - it's hard to argue that it turned out to be a good idea. In my opinion, there is a reason why only full professionals normally sit in the cars. Because if something should go wrong, regardless of whether the cause is of a driving or technical nature, professionals behave much more routinely than complete beginners and possibly avert much worse due to their instinctive reactions. However, this does not always protect them from injury in the event of an accident, as we recently saw with Sam Bird and his broken hand in Monaco 2024.

What if Izzy Hammond had been seriously injured in her accident? Or even worse? Then it would have happened live in front of an audience of millions, as part of a production designed to generate maximum attention. The fact that it ended well this time was due to the high safety standards of modern racing cars. And luck at the specific moment.

That's exactly the point: gaining reach is legitimate. But putting people without racing experience in a high-performance formula car, encouraging them to push in duel mode and holding the whole thing in a high-speed channel between concrete walls shifts the risk assessment in a direction that can hardly be justified. Influencers in the car? Fine by me. But please do it in such a way that safety doesn't have to take a back seat to the show. Because when in doubt, it's not the click figures that pay the price, but people.