Formula E has unveiled its schedule for the 2024-25 season, which will feature a record 17 races at 11 locations, including a return visit to Miami.
Less than a quarter of the races will take place on permanent circuits, bucking what seemed to be a trend of Formula E moving over to established venues at the expense of its customary street circuits. Those permanent tracks will be Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Homestead Miami Speedway, and Shanghai International Circuit.
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The season will straddle two calendar years for the first time since the 2019-20 season, with things kicking off in Brazil this December, before returning to Mexico in the new year. Then Diriyah in Saudi Arabia will follow, before an entirely new venue – which will be announced at a later date – in March.
Another new location, this time Homestead Miami Speedway, is the next stop in April, before the now annual visit to Monaco at the start of May. A three-event jaunt to Asia follows, with races in Tokyo, Japan, Shanghai, China, and Jakarta, Indonesia – returning after a one season break – before the staple event at Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport and the finale in London to see out the season.
The upcoming season, the first of the GEN3 Evo era, will feature six doubleheader events, with Saudi Arabia, Monaco, Japan, China, Germany, and the United Kingdom each hosting two races over a single weekend. For the event in Tokyo, the expansion to a doubleheader comes after a successful debut in the Japanese capital back in March – the first time a professional motor race had taken place on Japanese streets (pictured top).
“We could’ve sold the tickets for the Tokyo race multiple times over, and it was the first time that they’d ever closed the roads in Tokyo for any sporting event outside of the Tokyo marathon,” said Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds. “So the fact that they’ve invited us to do two races there back-to-back is a massive sign of confidence from the Tokyo metropolitan government and I think brilliant for Japanese fans who were unable to secure a ticket last year, they’ll have two gos at doing that, on both the Saturday and the Sunday.”
Meanwhile Monaco’s two races will mark the first time a top-level series has raced there twice on the same weekend, and comes after another highly competitive event on the streets of the principality seven weeks ago.
“It’s interesting, (there was) lots of talk after the Formula 1 race in Monaco about whether after 95 years that circuit is still suitable as a motor racing circuit,” said Dodds. “We delivered over 200 overtakes on the Monaco circuit in the formula E race this year, so I think to be granted the opportunity to go there and do back-to-back races for the first time ever in motorsport history in Monaco, again it’s a lovely moment for us as a championship.”
One glaring omission is that of Italy, which is off the Formula E calendar for the first time since the 2016-17 season (aside from the COVID-affected 2019-20 campaign).
Dodds says that Formula E is still keen to race in Italy, but after outgrowing its previous home on the streets of Rome, then trialling Misano earlier this year, it is exploring other avenues which will enable it to have a long-term footprint in the country.
“We definitely want to establish a home in Italy, that’s never been in question in our business,” he said. “We raced in Rome for a long time, and I think everybody knows a combination of our cars getting faster and the circuit being properly maxed out in our ability to race faster cars on that circuit, and a little bit about the economics as well, meant that Rome didn’t look like it was a long-term home for us, particularly as we’ve gone to GEN3 Evo and we’ve got our eyes on GEN4.
“Misano came to us as an option as a possibility. We tried it … we were made to feel to feel so incredibly welcome at Misano, the facilities were great, the leadership team were brilliant, they made us feel incredibly welcome and it felt like a lovely event, but the reality is for the location, which is quite a way away from the nearest airport, and the style of racing, which not every one of the drivers and teams loved, it didn’t feel to us like that was going to be the permanent home, the long-term home. We think we need to be closer to a large city, and ideally we would be on a street circuit, not a permanent circuit there.
“So our view was that if that’s not going to be our permanent home for this calendar, let’s introduce a different venue and keep looking and make sure we get the right home for Italy in the future.
“Taking Italy out for a year (is) obviously a difficult step,” he added, “but obviously a long-term commitment to bring Italy back into the calendar at the right venue I think is important.”
The total of 17 races is one more than the current season, which was set to also have 17 until the late cancellation of the Hyderabad E-Prix, but while one spot on the calendar remains TBD – which has been confirmed to be another temporary circuit – Dodds is confident there won’t be a repeat of this season’s late culling of another event.
“The location we have is in a place where the sign-off procedure requires some time,” Dodds explained. “I wouldn’t put it in as a TBD with the date secured if I wasn’t highly confident that we’re over the line already, at least we’re technically over the line if not contractually over the line, so I have high confidence that it will go ahead.
“But having been through this now last year, until we have super high confidence that everything’s buttoned down, we wouldn’t want to put it down as a named location.”
Once again, the Berlin rounds will clash with the FIA World Endurance Championship, a particularly difficult thing for Formula E to navigate with a number of its drivers also WEC regulars. But despite all efforts being made, the clash once again proved unavoidable.
“Alberto Longo, our chief championship officer, and the CEO of WEC met pretty extensively to try and avoid as much as was humanly possible,” said Dodds. “The great challenge we have is that we’re two growing motorsport series and we both try and avoid Formula 1 where possible, and then there’s some special holidays that get put in the calendar and in the end you just simply run out of weekends.
“So we’ve tried desperately to avoid everything, both sides, we end up with Interlagos as a clash with the Berlin race. It’s unavoidable for us, so what we are doing is giving plenty of notice to both championships’ teams, both manufacturers and drivers, there will be drivers that obviously that creates conflict and they’ll have to make choices.”
Nevertheless, Dodds looked at a positive slant on it, saying that it opens the door for drivers to debut in the series.
“We have seen some pretty cool debuts from new drivers into the championship,” he said. “I know the fans quite enjoy seeing new drivers in the championship and we can’t avoid that clash in the Berlin weekend. Hopefully we’ll be giving the teams plenty of time to sort that out in advance and make sure they get the commitment from their drivers.”
2024-25 Formula E Calendar
Round 1 Sao Paulo, Brazil December 7 2024
Round 2 Mexico City, Mexico January 11 2025
Rounds 3 & 4 Diriyah, Saudi Arabia February 14-15 2025
Round 5 TBD, TBD March 8 2025
Round 6 Miami, USA April 12 2025
Rounds 7 & 8 Monte Carlo, Monaco May 3-4 2025
Rounds 9 & 10 Tokyo, Japan May 17-18
Rounds 11 & 12 Shanghai, China May 31-June 1 2025
Round 13 Jakarta, Indonesia June 21 2025
Rounds 14 & 15, Berlin, Germany July 12-13 2025
Rounds 16 & 17, London, United Kingdom 26-27 July.