The city of Phoenix hit a significant hurdle for inclusion in the 2025-26 Formula E calendar at a late stage, but that hasn't stopped the organising party from pursuing a race.
In an exclusive interview with The Race, one of the key instigators of the project, Brad Wright, outlines the story so far and why a 2027 target to get the plans together is being worked on right now.
Why Phoenix didn't make the calendar
The objective for Phoenix to get on next season's Formula E calendar, a provisional version of which was made public in June, was not met after a breakdown in negotiations with a neighbouring jurisdiction that was included in the planned circuit.
Part of the circuit and the planned infrastructure area around it fell into Tempe, a city in the south-east of metropolitan Phoenix, and those considerations became a problem at a reasonably late stage in the plans.
"We almost got to the finish line and we had a wonderful submission, getting great feedback from the FIA and Formula E," says Wright.
"The City of Phoenix has been a fantastic partner of ours throughout this whole process, and they've leaned in with resources and they're excited about having the race. They've been very, very supportive.
"The City of Tempe, at the last minute, despite giving us verbal assurances that they would agree to host the race, decided not to. We did everything that we could to address the economic and other concerns they had. We think we mitigated those but, for whatever reason, they chose to not allow us to permit the race."
The Race understands that Papago Park, located in both cities, was the intended original venue for an inaugural Phoenix race to be held but that negotiations between the organiser and Tempe City officials broke down over both the naming rights of the event and also some road resurfacing and street furniture alterations that were planned.
"We won't be going back to Tempe," says Wright pointedly.
"These circuits, the design, the permitting, they're incredibly complicated when you're dealing with in this case, two municipalities, multiple landowners; securing the permissions for those can be very difficult.
"We've now pivoted, and we have a couple of circuits that we're working on, proposing a formula that we think will be equally as terrific as the one we were working on."
Why the interest in Formula E
Wright and the Dorsey & Whitney legal firm have been one of the key driving forces behind the bid for Phoenix to host a Formula E race and ensure international motorsport returns to the capital of Arizona for the first time since the 1991 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix.
Their partner on the bid committee, Kevin Loman, has been in the EV and battery industry for several years, and was working with Formula E and Cambridge University on projects regarding afterlife batteries.
"Kevin is a friend and a client of mine, and so he called me and asked me about if Phoenix might host an E-Prix," recalls Wright.
"To be honest, at first, I was just humouring him. I didn't know much about Formula E or these big events but I told him I'd help him take a look at it."
That triggered a visit to the New York City E-Prix in 2022 and then a trip to Portland a year later. Wright was impressed.
"It was just a really cool experience and I got intrigued," he adds.
"The idea with some of our state and local government officials, some of the leaders in the business community here started to form.
"I was really encouraged to continue and kind of redouble our efforts based on the fact that this race aligns so well with who we are as a community from an economic development standpoint, as we manufacture electric vehicles with Lucid [Motors] and Nikola [commercial EV manufacturer] here.
"We are also one of the largest microchip manufacturing hubs in the world, with Intel and [Taiwanese manufacturer] TSMC and others. Phoenix is a leader in clean technology, innovation, advanced manufacturing sustainability, so the alignment with formula E started to become obvious."
Plans started to form for an official approach to Formula E, which came in 2023, and then started to gain real traction early last year.
What Phoenix's Formula E future might look like
"We like to think big here in Phoenix and we want to host more than just a series of races," says Wright.
"We want Formula E to recognise Phoenix as their US home because of our alignment, because of the way that we will embrace this race. We'd like to make Phoenix Arizona the US home for FIA Formula E."
That is a bold ambition but one which Wright and the organisation keen to bring the electric championship to Phoenix are committed to.
An inclusion in the 2026-27 calendar, the first season for the Gen4 car, would need to be firmed up by May 2026 at the latest. A potential US double-header with Miami, in either January or early February of 2027, would be the most likely scheduling plan.
"We're looking at the first quarter of the year, and I know that Formula E has many, many factors to juggle when they're figuring out their schedule," says Wight.
"It's amazing here; really, [any date] from October through to April works. And so, if we could host a race sometime in late January, February that would work well."
