Mahindra Racing has revealed its 2025 Formula E challenger – the M11Electro, which will be driven by Nyck de Vries and Edoardo Mortara. The upcoming season will feature the new Gen3 Evo cars, which will introduce all-wheel drive for the very first time, along with new tyres and revised bodywork. And after a couple of difficult seasons, Mahindra will be hoping the M11Electro will revitalise its form in the championship.
- New Gen3 Evo cars have a 0-100kph time of 1.86 secs
- Gets all-wheel drive for the first time
- Mahindra targeting better efficiency this year
Mahindra M11Electro – What’s new?
The M11Electro sports a new metallic red, satin silver and carbon black livery. But the changes go beyond just a fresh look. At the centre of the project is a new powertrain, developed by Mahindra Racing themselves, along with revised aerodynamic, suspension and rear-end packages.
The headlining figure for the new Gen3 Evo cars is a 0-100kph time of 1.86 secs, which is claimed to be 30 percent quicker than current F1 cars. All-wheel drive will also be available for the first time in Formula E, but this can only be unlocked during qualifying duels, race starts and Attack Mode.
In the last two seasons, drivers have struggled to convert their Attack Mode boosts into overtaking moves. But de Vries believes the introduction of all-wheel drive will change this.
“The race strategy will likely change a little bit,” he said. “The impact of having four-wheel drive in Attack Mode is going to be greater, so we expect to gain more lap time and performance when we’re activating it. It will be a tool that can be used to make up positions, whereas I feel in the last two seasons, with the style of racing, it was more something you wanted to get rid of.”
The Gen3 Evo car also gets a new front wing, rear winglets and a narrower nose. The all-weather Hankook tyres have been revised to provide more grip as well.
Mahindra chasing gains in Formula E Season 11
Some sweeping changes have been made at Mahindra Racing since ex-FIA senior Frederic Bertrand joined the team as CEO in late-2022. He’s always maintained that Mahindra’s Formula E resurgence will be a long-term project, and despite facing a challenging start to the 2024 season, the team did become regular points scorers towards the end.
Bertrand is hoping to continue this upward trajectory in 2025. “It’s definitely been a busy time for the whole team, because we know that with every regulation change in Formula E comes an opportunity to move up the field,” he said. “Last season was all about putting a framework for success in place; not just hiring two world-class drivers but optimising our engineering and performance departments so that they are able to extract the maximum possible. We started to see the benefits of that towards the end of last season, and I’m hoping Season 11 will be a continual improvement from that.”
He further added that the team is targeting a P5-P6 spot in the championship next season. One key area that that Mahindra is chasing gains in is efficiency. Bertrand admits that this is something that held the team back last season, limiting how much drivers could attack and defend since they were losing too much energy.
“One of the expectations is additional efficiency, so that we can start the race with more ambition because we’re not limited by the idea that we will be too short on energy. That was definitely one of the things that was driving a lot of our strategy last season,” he explained.
“Last season we knew that we would struggle and we did. We hope that this car [the M11Electro] is able to bring us in the midfield. If we can end the season around P5-P6 in the championship as a manufacturer and as a team, I think it would be a good step for us. If we can do more and go for the podium, we will push for it.”
Mahindra says testing with the M11Electro has been “very positive” to date and the team is now gearing up for the official pre-season test in Valencia from November 4-7.
Also see:
Formula E Gen3 Evo racer revealed; accelerates quicker than F1 car
Porsche, Wehrlein crowned 2024 Formula E champions in London
