The silence is often quite unerring.
The three-, sometimes four-hour gap between Formula E qualifying and the race yawns on. But it surely can't for much longer.
Such is the wham-bam, fast paced nature of E-Prixs, the teams barely notice. But we can tell you that the fans do, because they've told us.
Once the fan zone sights have been exhausted and the brief - and, in London, the exorbitantly priced - autograph session is concluded, the fans twiddle their thumbs again.
No track action, bar the drone of VIPs on hot laps, is clearly not good enough for a world championship, and Formula E knows it.
But just when you think this is an issue without answer, there is one option that is really staring Formula E in the face. It is also one that, by rights, should probably already have had several entertaining races under its belt on the Formula E schedule.
The Nxt Gen Cup, a one-make junior series that uses electric Minis, had an initial agreement to support Formula E at four events in 2024. Everything appeared to be in place and the series even turned up to Misano for its first run in April 2024 but was essentially turned away.
A dispute, presumed to be financial, between Formula E Operations and the Nxt Gen Cup organiser led to an embarrassing climbdown and the awnings were packed away just a few days before the action was about to start.
It was a massive missed opportunity. Formula E is now looking harder than ever to get a first support series together for 2027.
It has unleashed its sporting VP Beth Paretta on the project. She knows more than most that the Nxt Gen Cup is the most viable, the most active and most ready series to fill the holes.
Why this series?
If a support series for Formula E is right in front of the promoter, why is it not being seen and activated?
Formula E obviously wants to make money from a support series, this is clear. Despite messaging of providing more action for spectators and potentially TV viewers and being philanthropic to younger drivers - potentially female ones - Formula E and, more pertinently, its major stakeholder Liberty Global need to monetise it.
It did so with the Jaguar I-Pace eTROPHY from 2018-20 and it wants to tempt manufacturers again with Nissan, Stellantis and Porsche all having been scoped-out recently for an opportunity.
But the Nxt Gen Cup asserts it is ready for action, according to its founder and driving force Fredrik Lestrup, a former racer who started the series in 2021, and it's easy to see why.
After the aborted start with Formula E in 2024, the Nxt Gen Cup went on to race with the DTM successfully that year and has done so again this year, regularly with 18-car fields.
Discussions with Formula E continue, with Lestrup telling The Race that "the relationship, the communication with Formula E is very, very good".
"There is a big will to have us on the platform, especially after we have proved over a few seasons now we can deliver a really strong racing product," adds Lestrup.
“They know the basics, and they want us to join. We want to join and we've started talking about 2026."
Most things are in place for Nxt Gen Cup to be part of some Formula E weekends. It's easy to see it racing at Jeddah, Jarama, Monaco and Berlin. That could be an eight-race commitment, but even if it were just one race per event it would be better than the present tumbleweed hours for the world's only electric world championship.
Probably the frustrating aspect for Nxt Gen Cup is that pretty much everything is in place, bar the absolute financial element sought by Formula E.
The series already has a key partnership with ABB - Formula E's title sponsor - through its charging infrastructure and it has a model that is self-sufficient in terms of staff, technical aptitude, its own partners and it even races with the same tyre supplier, Hankook.
Track time and paddock space is all that is needed and while in some locations that can prove tricky, Formula E now visits tracks that have more flexibility in these areas, much more so than when it was forced to cram the Jaguar I-Paces in at troublesome locations such as New York, Hong Kong, Rome and Paris.
A celebrity or influencer element in the Nxt Gen Cup might be interesting, whereby a regular driver shares a car with a well-known figure. The cars are ideal for such a scenario and it would fit into Formula E's lust for the transient world of the Instagram selfie crowd.
Nxt Gen Cup has also evidenced that female drivers are a core part of its philosophy. Two of them, Patricija Stalidzane and Siri Hökfelt, won races during the 2025 season, with Stalidzane finishing fourth overall.
"We've had up to six females racing, basically, 33% of the grid are female drivers and they've proved to be really, really good," adds Lestrup.
From Formula E's perspective, it has to have a cost to a support series joining. With a world championship that has serious manufacturers spending big money, an entity going through a back door to get on to the platform will have a premium.
Where things stand at present is that Nxt Gen Cup is ready to go and ready to race, but needs the financial imperative to be answered. While this is where the stumbling block lay in 2024, it feels like now something more positive might be achievable for 2026 and beyond.
"If they [Formula E] say to me, 'In two weeks, there's a race, can you join?' We can join but we are obviously aware that we need to get the financial side as strong as the operational and sporting side and that is where our focus is now," says Lestrup.
"We need one week to get ready, and then we can go racing. The tracks fit our car very well and we all want to go racing, because what we have is literally a plug-in and play race series here that is now proven."
