Williams engineers relieved of Formula E data duties

In a move agreed between the FIA, Spark Technologies and Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE), all support engineers from WAE have effectively been ostracised from frequenting team garages at Formula E events during race weekends.

The move is thought to have been enforced after a FETA (Formula E Teams' Association) meeting at Buenos Aires in early February, and has been triggered by WAE's partnership with the nascent Jaguar Formula E programme.

It is believed that from the Mexican race onwards, Spark engineers have taken on the responsibility of downloading teams' data as opposed to WAE engineers, who were previously given access to the garages and cars to extract the information.

The modified procedure is understood by Motorsport.com to be in place for the remainder of the current season, and is likely to be a permanent move as WAE ramps up its partnership with the new Jaguar team.

The contentious situation comes after concerns were raised by some team principals and engineers after the Jaguar/WAE alliance was made public just before Christmas.

It is believed that the rumoured recruitment by Jaguar of WAE's head of electrical engineering, Okan Tur, as an engineering development lead for the Jaguar project triggered the move for greater confidentiality for the teams at races.

Tur was not present at the Mexico City Formula E race, which saw most WAE engineers utilising the paddock and pit offices rather than entering the boxes themselves to go about their usual data gathering work, which was WAE's primary function in the teams' garages at all previous events.

It remains unclear how the operational track support of WAE's involvement with teams will evolve in season three of the championship once they are also in attendance with Jaguar at races.