until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
Alex Lynn says he is ready to fight for Formula E victories after being confirmed as Alexander Sims’ team-mate at Mahindra for the 2021 season.
The former Virgin and Jaguar driver will get his first full-time Formula E programme since the 2017-18 season when he partnered Sam Bird at DS Virgin Racing.
Lynn took over from Pascal Wehrlein at Mahindra in Formula E earlier this year for the last six races of the season – all held at the Berlin Tempelhof Airport – as Wehrlein stepped aside ahead of his move to Porsche next season.
Having impressed during his Berlin outings in August when he was the joint best qualifier with Robin Frijns, Lynn averaged sixth place on the starting grid across the Tempelhof races and took a best finish of fifth in the penultimate race.
Lynn has shared the development of the new Mahindra M7ELECTRO with Sims and told The Race that he feels ready to take a breakthrough win in the category.
“My ambitions in Formula E are pretty big and I feel like I am ready to achieve the results that not only Dilbagh wants but what I want. I want to win a race,” he said.
“Certainly I am aiming to win races this season, be on the podium, be in Super Pole every week and that’s what we will be turning up for every single weekend.
“Not to beat around the bush but I think that now is the time to really put down some results on paper and I feel very ready to achieve those.”
Although Lynn was not confirmed at Mahindra until Wednesday, the reality is that he has long since had the seat.
He attributes both his performances at Berlin – where he scored three points less than his team-mate Jerome d’Ambrosio managed all season – and his smooth transition at Mahindra to the close working relationship he has forged with his side of the engineering team.
“I did feel very grateful that the team I was joining were very welcoming,” he said.
“But also my own mini-team that I also work with, my race engineer Cyril [Blais] and my performance engineer Saqib [Khan], we started off like a house on fire as a small unit and I’ve got those guys to thank a lot for how I got up to speed in the car.
“I did feel we were going to be good even though it was coming in at the deep-end.
“There wasn’t a point where I felt we couldn’t do the job and I really, really felt that there was something good happening in the team and everyone had worked really hard in the lockdown and that gave me a lot of internal confidence actually.”
Mahindra team principal, Dilbagh Gill says that Lynn’s performances in Berlin surpassed the teams expectations.
Gill, who missed the Berlin races after testing positive for COVID-19 just before, says that Lynn soon became “an integral team member”.
“We set some internal goals for Alex at Berlin and he nailed it, we couldn’t have expected more from him,” said Gill.
“Race pace wasn’t our strength last year but Alex sort of continuously improved in the six races and brought in some useful points.”
Several changes have been made to the Mahindra operation in the off-season with Gill recruiting former Mercedes-Benz High Performance Powertrains team leader Josef Holden.
The outfit has also recently moved into new premises in Banbury which features two driver-in-the-loop simulators and design offices.
But perhaps the biggest change is its technical collaboration on the power unit with the ZF engineering company, which according to Gill is already baring fruit.
“We are looking at season seven as hitting the reset button and having a re-start and we are cautiously optimistic,” said Gill.
“What we have seen in terms of testing from ZF is a fantastic powertrain and I think those guys have really gone above and beyond our expectations especially during the pandemic period.
“There has been considerable progress.”
2021 Formula E driver line-up so far
DS Techeetah: Antonio Felix da Costa, Jean-Eric Vergne
Nissan e.Dams: Sebastien Buemi, Oliver Rowland
Mercedes: Stoffel Vandoorne, Nyck de Vries
Envision Virgin: Robin Frijns, Nick Cassidy
BMW i Andretti: Maximilian Guenther, Jake Dennis
Audi Sport Abt: Lucas di Grassi, Rene Rast
Jaguar: Sam Bird, Mitch Evans
Porsche: Andre Lotterer, Pascal Wehrlein
Mahindra: Alexander Sims, Alex Lynn
Venturi: Edoardo Mortara, Norman Nato
Dragon: Sergio Sette Camara, Nico Mueller
NIO333: Oliver Turvey, Tom Blomqvist
Drivers in italics rumoured or not yet officially confirmed
