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Mahindra Racing driver Alexander Sims confirmed that he will be leaving Formula E at the end of the 2022 season.
The Brit joined Formula E back in 2018 with BMW Andretti. He enjoyed one win throughout his time in the Formula, in Diriyah in 2019. He also achieved three pole positions – one in New York and two in Diryah in 2018.
But when The Race spoke to the 34-year-old at the Marrakesh E-Prix last weekend, he admitted that his time in Formula E is edging closer. With Mahindra Racing, Alexander has not been having the best of years. Despite some good moments at times, the car does not seem to be competitive enough.
The Brit posted on his Twitter, “I made my decision a couple of weeks ago and am really looking forward to the future. Before that though, I am committed to finishing this season as best I can with the brilliant crew around me at Mahindra Racing.”
Alexander finds himself in 18th place after 10 rounds, with just two points, while his fellow British teammate, Oliver Rowland, is four places above him with 11 points. The poor performances are not what directly affected Alexander’s decision though. Instead, they gave him time to reflect on what he really wants to do in his career and gave him a moment of realisation.
Alexander Sims’ Reasons
The Brit admitted that he does not enjoy single-seater racing as much. He recently also raced in the Nurburgring and at Le Mans 24 Hours this year. Performing against some of the best drivers in the field, Alexander does not look at beating the best of the best. He rather looks at enjoying what he’s doing as he explained.
Alexander said, “The single-seater championships, this racing takes me back a bit to my F3, GP3 days which I didn’t enjoy so much.
“I went to GT racing after that, and it was like ‘Woah’ – new lease of life and I loved racing again. I think it’s just sort of the single-seater format, especially in Formula E, it’s a very short amount of driving time, high pressure, a very competitive environment – which is great because when you do well you feel like you’ve beaten some of the best in the world, it’s just not 100% for me. Endurance is a better place for me personally.
“[Formula E] is just not the format for me personally, which is a shame because the EVs being something I’m so keen about and passionate about it seemed a really good fit. Just more from a sporting point of view, I just tend to overthink things and there are too many unknowns in Formula E that I’m not confident enough to just brush off and just get on with it.
“I overthink things a bit too much and that probably works to my advantage a bit more in endurance racing because you have so much more time in the car, and you can actually fine-tune into things, but this will be my last season in Formula E. I made that decision myself.
“I feel really strange talking about the fact that maybe racing in Formula E isn’t something I enjoy hugely now. That’s because I think to the slightly more untrained eye on the outside, and to be honest even before I joined Formula E, I used to think, ‘Oh God, that’s amazing.’ High-end, now world championship level, why wouldn’t you want to be there?
“But at the end of the day it’s the daily work, it’s the work that you do day-to-day and the feeling and enjoyment that you get from that. As I said, I get on with everyone in the team really well. I’ve got no issues with that; it’s more the format of the racing doesn’t work for me so much.
“Mahindra being closer to home has definitely been a good factor, we’ve ended up doing a lot more simulator days than I did at BMW. I’ve wanted to go and do the work to try and improve and to try and get things a bit more competitive, particularly on my side of the garage but it just, unfortunately, hasn’t translated into too much improvement and results.”
Sims’ time at Mahindra
His time with Mahindra has not been plain sailing. The Berlin race is what disappointed Alexander the most. He managed a front-row position thanks to a penalty Sebastien Buemi suffered, but his pace did not cooperate with him.
Alexander said, “The car felt good for me that day, but we couldn’t understand why. That’s my biggest issue; I don’t know what to try and achieve with the car because even when we are fast we can’t see much difference in the data, we can’t understand what it is that is giving me that feeling.
“Those laps in the knockout stage were like, I don’t want to say easy, but it was just like we do a lap – boom we’re competitive, we’re in the mix – boom, another one, yup, we’re competitive – boom, another one. It was like… normal, and I’ve done plenty of those laps this season where it’s felt pretty OK but I’m a second off or five-tenths off or whatever.”
Despite the difficulties, Alexander is grateful for the great team he has surrounding him in the Mahindra garage. He added, “I’ve worked with Andrea [Ackroyd], my performance engineer, since the start of Formula E, and my relationship with her is brilliant. Tom [Davis, race engineer] understands me very well too. He’s calm, he’s methodical when we have bad sessions he’s very much, ‘Yup, alright onto the next one, no stress,’ which works for me. I don’t have any major – well, no issues with the people around me that I work with.”
While having such great support from the people around him, it does not mean that the bad times didn’t catch up with him. They still got in his way as he explained, “It’s been tough at times honestly and it does start to impact my outlook on what I want to do, where I want to be longer-term. Because nobody likes to be less competitive than they want to be and not have any real answers as to why. That’s really the big thing for me. I’ve made the decision actually [to not race in Formula E after 2022].
“Naturally I wanted to explore what other options there would be in Formula E. There were some and I’ve actually decided myself, off the back of Nurburgring and Le Mans as well, I gave myself like two or three months of ‘We know the situation with the team, look elsewhere as well.’”
Featured Image Credit: Mahindra Racing Official Twitter