The ex-F1 racer turned team boss adapting to a FE title fight

By:

Jake Boxall-Legge

Jul 26, 2022, 11:55 AM

For the second year in a row, the Venturi team is in the thick of the fight for Formula E title glory with Edoardo Mortara. That's despite a change to a more meritocratic qualifying system, which was expected to give the works Mercedes team an edge, and ex-Formula 1 racer Jerome d'Ambrosio being new in the team principal hot seat. As he tells Motorsport.com, it's a challenge he's revelling in

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In Formula E’s very first race, Venturi had stamped its place into the all-electric championship’s folklore - albeit not entirely in auspicious terms. On that day in Beijing, where Nick Heidfeld was challenging e.dams’ Nicolas Prost for victory on the final lap, the Frenchman cut across his then World Endurance Championship team-mate into the last corner. Heidfeld was pitched into a flip, and Venturi was denied the chance to become Formula E’s first winning team.

The Monegasque squad has been ever-present in Formula E since, and in that time, much has changed. Opting to become a powertrain manufacturer and supplier as the formula was opened up from the full single-spec arrangement after the first season, Venturi then became a Mercedes customer ahead of Formula E’s sixth season in 2019-20. Thus began its most successful period in the championship, paving the way to a Maserati tie-up that will herald a return to being a manufacturer entity.

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Jake Boxall-Legge

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Jake Boxall-Legge Autosport’s Technical Editor. Having studied Automotive Engineering with Motorsport at the University of Hertfordshire, West Country-born Jake's original ambition was to design racing cars. During a year between studies in which he accidentally rekindled a love of writing, he took up a Master's in Motorsport Engineering at Oxford Brookes. Halfway through his master's year, he was offered a place on the Autosport Academy, conducting occasional freelance duties before becoming the press officer for Formula 2 and GP3 in 2018. Autosport offered him a return to the fold later that year to serve as its Technical Editor. His voice appears on a number of videos and podcasts, and can often be found writing about terrible Formula 1 cars in excruciating detail. In his spare time, Jake enjoys baking and blames his failure to make it past the Great British Bake-Off interviews on his tenuous grasp on choux pastry. His dream is to open a brunch cafe - and his willingness to make outrageous puns in inappropriate situations has earned him the contempt of his colleagues.