There's a big year ahead in Formula E - not least because the Gen4 era - and the associated team, manufacturer and driver decisions - is now on the horizon.
With the 2025-26 season kicking off in Sao Paulo this weekend, Sam Smith picks out five storylines central to the next 12 months in the championship.
Echoes of Formula E's most open season
The last of the four Gen3 seasons should mean the field bunches up once more. Teams have three years' worth of data from this ruleset, and a full year of knowledge of the 'Evo' package too.
That's not to say there aren't new sporting aspects for teams and drivers to adapt to this season. A 50% reduction in the attack mode will kick in for Jeddah, Berlin, Monaco, Shanghai, Tokyo and London as the double-header races continue to feature the Pit Boost energy top-up.
There will also be no requirement now for drivers to completely use up attack mode prior to the end of races. How this might change strategies is unclear but it could mean some in the lower reaches of the field gamble on late attack mode activations, depending on the circuit configuration.
The one real caveat is that, as teams continue to try to perfect the new-for-2024-25 Hankook tyres, one outfit might be able to forge an advantage here or there. That's likely to be amplified because dry-weather running was much lesser than expected last season: remarkably, all but two of the 11 race weekends either had sessions of races affected by rain.
Former Mercedes EQ and McLaren engineer Albert Lau, who now works for the Paceteq software and telemetry company, agreed - telling The Race: "If you're going to give me a full dry season, I'm telling you, we're winning the championship if I was in the same package as last year.
"The tyre is always the key and you saw last year, even when you get to a place like London, a low-speed circuit, they took three, four warm-up laps just to get them up to temperature.
"It's just making sure you've understood all of those parameters. A lot of the tracks we're into this year are repeat circuits from last year. So, they have the data, they have a lot more understanding, so it's going to be super close."
A wide variety of race winners is basically guaranteed, especially as Edoardo Mortara and Nyck de Vries showed in the second half of last season that Mahindra is now a threat right at the front again, too.
There could be echoes of the 2021 season, when a tombola-esque qualifying system contributed to 11 different winners from 15 races and a ludicrous 18 drivers heading into the final event at Berlin Tempelhof with a mathematical chance at becoming champion.
Don't expect quite that level of chaos, but it wouldn't be a surprise to see eight-to-10 drivers winning races this season and potentially three or four heading to London next August with a decent chance of winning Formula E's 12th title.
The Mahindra factor
The buzz around Mahindra has actually been in place since the Monaco/Tokyo rounds in May last season. From that point on, its car was phenomenal in qualifying in particular and by the season finale its drivers were genuine win contenders, as de Vries picked up two well-deserved podiums in London to ensure fourth place in the teams' standings.
With some fine-tuning, Mahindra has made a step - if the Valencia test is anything to go by - and it would be a major surprise if it wasn't in the mix this season.
The back end of the Mahindra Gen3 Evo startled rivals with its planted grip, and its rotational dexterity is another level compared to its initial Gen3 offering in 2023 and 2024.
The team's last win came at the inaugural London E-Prix in July 2021. An end to that drought is now within its sight and it would feel like a disappointment, such is the positivity around the team, if it did not tick that off at the very least.
The big question is how the team will now structure, and juggle, its Gen4 push as it has announced its manufacturer commitment relatively late.
Should it achieve this, then both drivers - one a champion, both winners of multiple races, and both vastly experienced - can become title challengers, too.
Evans's situation has Hill 1996 hallmarks
On paper, Mitch Evans has one of his best chances of scooping the title he's hankered after for almost a decade. But beneath the surface, it is getting complicated.
The signing of Stoffel Vandoorne as Jaguar reserve this season is much more significant. The 2022 champion won't have essentially forsaken a Genesis World Endurance Championship drive to become 'just' a reserve driver and it's clear that he has a very good chance of a race seat for Gen4, and has indeed already tested the manufacturer's development car.
If Vandoorne partnering Antonio Felix da Costa were to pan out for the 2026-27 season, where will Evans go and, if he did move on, could he take the #1 with him in a Damon-Hill-Williams-1996-style exit?
Read more: Is Formula E's longest relationship at win or bust moment?
It is entirely possible, because Evans is a driver who nearly always strings together top results that at least amount to a title push. It didn't happen last season but he still took two victories, one more than Pascal Wehrlein and two more than new team-mate da Costa.
The complications come from how the relationship between Evans and the new team principal Ian James begins. When it comes to mapping out his future, Evans won't have the pick of the paddock - but he will have choices. The big question at present is whether the team he has been with for nine years will still be one of them.
Could the behemoth get even bigger?
Citroen is in. Opel is coming. But what about DS, Stellantis's ever-present Formula E brand?
What we do know, even if it's not officially confirmed, is that DS will uncouple from Penske next summer. This has been defined for some time and it will mean that DS is essentially cut adrift as Penske holds the licence for entry.
While Penske is expected to go its own way - perhaps with another brand - for Gen4, DS is still open to staying in Formula E, possibly coexisting with brand siblings Citroen and Opel (which is yet to be officially confirmed for Gen4 still).
What is known is that a third way exists for DS to make it a hat-trick of Stellantis brands for Gen4. It is feasible, and one of the teams looking for a manufacturer partner, Envision, has a strong winning history already with DS, claiming four wins with Sam Bird in the team known as DS Virgin between 2016 and 2018.
"Having someone like Stellantis, that can get scale economies out of leveraging the investment across their brands, is a really good thing," Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds told The Race.
"For our championship, they're recognisable household brands, which is great. They've got incredible engineering discipline down in Satory [Stellantis Motorsport headquarters] and we love having them around because they're a massive, global car company."
Ticktum's shot at a manufacturer seat
Dan Ticktum's assertions that he was considered for the seat alongside Wehrlein at the factory Porsche team are, officially, refuted by the team.
Whatever occurred last summer, Ticktum is at least much less of just an erratic blip on the radar now when it comes to manufacturers' consideration. The reason is simple: he's now a winner and, on his day, one of the out-and-out fastest drivers in the championship - and potentially, on the evidence of his Tokyo and London laps last season, the fastest over a single lap.
Should he and Cupra Kiro match that with more consistent race performances this season, and if Ticktum can finish in the top six in the standings, then the team will have a real fight on its hands to keep Ticktum next year.
Then there is the other stuff. The 'Dan stuff'. At present, the balance is good and he's in a happy place. But how long will that last?
Some of the responsibility for that is down to the team to give him a car capable of repeating his breakthrough Jakarta win last season, but the bulk of it is down to him really.
He's showing signs of being more durable, but he will be without performance guru Gerry Convy this season as Convy concentrates on other series and projects. But with the addition of Gary Paffett as racing director, there is a mature and seasoned pro on hand to soak up some of the directional focus for Ticktum and ensure the contentedness is maintained.
If that happens and Ticktum adds a win or wins to his stats this season, then rivals will come fishing for Gen4.
