Can Formula E rediscover itself in Portland, crack America?

To a backdrop of sweeping, mid-season leadership changes, Formula E is making another attempt at cracking the United States. Saturday’s race in Portland puts the all-electric open-wheel series in competition with IndyCar for popularity and spectacle, taking it to a permanent raceway rather than its usual temporary street circuits. Can the series make an American breakthrough on the fourth time of asking?

As weird as it sounds, go back six or seven years and Formula E had everything Formula One wanted: growing manufacturer interest, a thriving digital presence that had struck where other motorsport was snoozing, multiple prestige races in U.S. venues and exciting new American shareholder investment from Liberty Global.

Then things changed.

Liberty Media (not to be confused with Liberty Global, more on that in a minute) bought F1, it discovered the internet and Netflix docuseries “Drive To Survive” blasted it into the stratosphere. Formula E got left behind, digitally speaking.

Brands that had panic-leapt to FE in the wake of Dieselgate refocused on electric road cars. Liberty Global didn’t seem to get it the same exposure that sister company Liberty Media was getting for F1. Formula E was trying to tell behind-the-scenes stories before F1 was, but somehow always fell behind in getting them out.

Liberty Global and Liberty Media used to be the same thing. Liberty Global was split off in 2005, becoming an international arm specializing in telecommunications and mass media, while Liberty Media is now a sports and entertainment holdings entity.

Global’s main business is telecommunications, owning phone networks and data providers, as well as broadcast channels and streaming platforms. Formula E was just part of its portfolio, a property that it seemed largely content to let original management handle until this year.

It doesn’t own FE outright, with other investors still holding significant portions of the shares. But the series’ new CEO, Jeff Dodds, is an experienced Liberty Global guy, having previously worked on integrating the Virgin Mobile brand into the group’s portfolio.

He’s arrived in Formula E at a strange time: it’s halfway through a pivotal season, the first of the new the Gen3 cars, and replacing outgoing CEO Jamie Reigle at the start of this month. Portland will be the first E-Prix Dodds oversees as CEO, and while it would be unreasonable to assume that he can have much of a transformative effect in just a few weeks at the desk, the event itself will be a kind of litmus test for how far off Formula E is from making real popularity gains.

F1 being as popular as it is right now doesn’t especially help the rest of motorsport. From Formula E to rallycross, it’s extremely hard for other racing series to both schedule a calendar around a 23-event juggernaut and compete with it for views. The social media buzz of participation has been dominated by grands prix, even if the on-track action is often mediocre.

Formula E has bigger barriers, though.

Although this problem is by no means unique to its U.S. broadcasting deal, FE has spent several years of its short lifespan either obscured or actually impossible to watch live. A longstanding deal with Fox Sports saw it pushed to replays or not shown at all, and although this season and the Portland E-Prix will be shown live by CBS, diehard fans have grown accustomed to getting creative in search of access to other regions’ broadcasts while casual viewers lost track altogether.

That’s a strange phenomenon considering that Formula E has gone harder in the United States, events wise, than any other series.

Portland, WE’RE COMING FOR YOU 🇺🇸⚡️

Take a look at the @southwire #PortlandEPrix track ahead of the upcoming racing action this weekend 🔜 pic.twitter.com/rjVfQnl16z

— ABB FIA Formula E World Championship (@FIAFormulaE) June 19, 2023

Portland is taking the place of the New York E-Prix, an event that was deftly negotiated to be the only motorsport allowed in Brooklyn due to the cars’ zero emissions. Before that, FE was the first to bag Miami — now F1’s flagship venue — as well as two years in Long Beach and even a semi-disastrous esports event in Las Vegas.

It’s not as though the events weren’t successful, either. The New York E-Prix was consistently sold out, and despite its annual July dates making it one of the sweatiest stops in motorsport, had fans happy to turn out to the concrete of Red Hook for a track that always produced exciting racing. Long Beach and Miami took place during the early, funny years of teams stumbling around the original Gen1 cars (which featured a mid-race car swap due to lack of range) but still drew a crowd.

Portland, Formula E has argued, isn’t a step-down venue, even if it is on the calendar because of construction work around the New York site. It’s an eco-minded city, with an existing motorsport audience, according to FE co-founder Alberto Longo.

“We are excited to bring the premier electric motorsport world championship to Portland for the first time,” Longo said. “There is a big, passionate fanbase for professional sports in the city, together with strong ecological credentials which makes Portland a perfect host for the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

“The USA remains an important market for Formula E. We are delighted to maintain that critical presence and engage a new audience in the Pacific Northwest region in all-electric motorsport.”

U.S. Formula E fans are used to races being at inconvenient times, aside from the Mexico City and Sao Paulo rounds. Finally having a west coast venue again presents another opportunity to align the time zones, and an unusually late 5:00 p.m. race start in Portland means the lights will go out in prime time on the east coast.

Beyond broadcast windows, there are justifiable reasons for that.

A later start in the day means there should be cooler conditions, and Portland looks set to be a race in which energy efficiency will be vital to cars being able to last the 45-minutes-plus-one-lap distance. Lower air and track temperatures mean cars can push thermal limits on batteries and powertrain components to regenerate more. That’s extremely important in a race where up to 40% of the energy used will come from recovery under braking — Formula E’s big tech progress miracle.

There’s plenty of reason to worry about that, though. FE’s prior trips to permanent circuits, with their flowing nature compared to the stop-start street circuits that provide plenty of heavy braking zones, haven’t been entirely successful. Puebla, Mexico, provided pedestrian racing, while the 2021 Valencia round served up embarrassment when several cars ran out of energy in the final laps.

“The layout is unlike anything else we have seen in Formula E,” Maserati team principal James Rossiter said. “It has a high number of fast, sweeping corners, but very few braking zones, which will likely make for a highly strategic race with a reliance on slipstreaming.”

That’s all well and good, and doubtless worth watching, but it might come as a bit of a shock to local fans used to turning up to roaring IndyCars able to push lap after lap. Without the show of a racetrack plonked in the middle of city streets, there’s also a risk that no one notices Formula E’s in town.

Portland is an opportunity for Formula E to grab the audience that does show up and tune in, showcase its U.S. credentials (Andretti sit fourth in the team standings, but their Jake Dennis is second in the drivers’ championship) and turn its successes at prestige venues into actual popularity. Ahead of stops in Rome and London, Portland has the chance to change the championship fight — and fans’ minds about it.