Is the auto sport podcast. Well, it's not unheard of in motor sport, but it's certainly not common. For a newly crowned world champion driver to up sticks and move to the back of the grid. But that's exactly what's happening in formula E next year. Stoffel van dorn will move to the dragon Penske squad as driver's champion and he'll be joining a team with two points to their name in the course of last season. Well, today we'll ask, how will the formula E grid look different next year? Why won't one of the most successful teams? Possibly even be on the grid. And can the new gen three cars provide the entertainment we need to forget all about the manufacturers that have recently left the sport. Let's get up to speed with autosports, Jake box all leg, JBL, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for having me. It's been a really busy few weeks, a formula E's kind of kicked off now, even though we're in that sort of mid season lull. And I was talking to somebody from formula E and they were like, you know, why would we put out all of our information now because we're in such a lull, but it seems that silly seasons kind of kicked off of it. There's so much to get through on the podcast today and to make sure the listeners know, you know, what's coming up and why this could be a great reboot for formula E but so many unanswered questions. Let's go back to a point in time, not the beginning of formula E but let's go back to December 2020. And the sport had done the hard yards of attracting, manufacturer names, Audi, BMW, Mercedes. But then it all started to unravel. What happened with that series of announcements a couple of years ago now? I think part of it was slightly down to financial pressures put on by the pandemic. I think part of it was automated manufacturers, maybe considering formula E not worthy of the investment at the time, let's say. And so it got to the point where BMW released a press release and saying we've pretty much learned everything that we can learn from our formula E program. And so we'll bring it to an end at the end of the 2020 21 seasons. That is season 7 in formula E speak. Audi went the same way, both of those manufacturers were tied up with other teams as well. So BMW was supply works powertrans to Andretti, Audi was supplying works powertrains too well. Apps was running the works team and envision was running a customer supply. You know, they didn't leave Andretti and envision high and dry, but it was without a factory support. Mercedes also announced after it's 2021 title triumph that it would also be leaving formula E at the end of this season, just gone, so Mercedes is now gone, that's out of the picture. It's one of the teams championship and Saul van Doorn won the driver's championship but Mercedes has now gone as it was a bit of a difficult time, I think, for formula E is a series. It had just built up all of this momentum. It was getting these manufacturers in and producing their own powertrains. And then it kind of stalled out a little bit. So it's been a bit of a difficult time for everyone there to try and build that momentum back. We're getting to a point where it is. Well, after the shock of those manufacturers leaving, slowly but surely, we got new entrants joining up who has stepped up to replace them. Obviously, Mercedes being the one that's gone and McLaren has now come into purchase the team is going concern pretty much everything in terms of all of the staff and those leading the team of the same, pretty much a continuation of the same team with all of the people that have won two championships. I mean, you wouldn't really want to change that. But not keeping Mercedes. It's a bit like buying a local Tesco store. They've kept the store manager, but they're not saying every little helps. They're getting rid of all of the Mercedes stuff. They're going to bring in the smart price. I don't know where I'm going with this, but McLaren are not using Mercedes, even though they're keeping all the same people. How does that work? It's kind of out of necessity because Mercedes isn't producing a gen three powertrain. McLaren has to go for somebody that does, and when it came to talking to the supplies that are, I think, Nissan was the one that perhaps aligned itself with what McLaren needed from it. It's not had a particularly good couple of years in it, Sam, but such a massive manufacturer, they're making these massive strides to improve their electric vehicle range. It's ultimately got the people on board to the can make a success of it and it took a misstep through the second half of the gen two era, but at the start of it, it was so, so strong. So it's a big automotive concern to have on your side for sure. And who else has joined to make up the numbers? No, more than that. That sounds that sounds just disparaging. But who else has joined the grid? So we've got Maserati in as well. Ending a hiatus of over 60 years running a work's motor sport team in single seater racing at least anyway, obviously the MC 12 was a hugely successful sports car. Yeah, I think for the first time since 1960, it centering a single seater world championship and it's done that by tying up with the team formerly known as venturi or voluntary if you want to get monegasque about this. It's badging and it's putting its own people into a very, very successful team, a team that was second level even the team's championship last year. It seemed that edoardo mortara has excelled for in the last couple of years, so it's got a fantastic team on its side. And there's the return of the app team as well after leaving with Audi at the end of 2021. It now comes back as a team of its own and it's taken up the mahindra powertrains, so new teams returning teams taking over teams, but it's good to see these competitors come overcome back or come in to the championship because they've got such pedigree among them. Well, great for McLaren as well entering in Mercedes place. With a couple of drivers who they've not had the best of times within the past, dispensing with their services in the past in their Formula One program. So McLaren deciding neither van dorn nor Nick devries were required as part of their other motor sport commitments over the years. So we have a team coming in and with drivers around who not necessarily