Will The Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team Race To A Podium Finish With Its Tech Talent Transformation Strategy?

Way back in 2009, a couple of my colleagues jumped from my team in Frost & Sullivan to launch a start-up company focused on developing the equivalent of Formula 1 racing but…with electric vehicles (EVs). I remember a couple of exhilarating conversations where we talked about how cool it would be to have an electric race where speed and sustainability went hand-in-hand (or wheel-to-wheel as the case may be), where the high torque of the EVs would allow rapid acceleration at the starting grid (although, arguably, cause more accidents), and where an electrifying new platform would draw in a new generation of fans. Fast forward to a decade later and one of those early EV racing pioneers now runs Envision Virgin Racing.

So it was interesting to get reacquainted with the latest buzz in Formula E during my recent conversation with Jan Gupta, President of Modis, and Ian James, Team Principal of the Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team. Mercedes and Modis recently entered into a unique partnership—Modis is now Official Engineering Partner to the Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team—and I was particularly keen to understand why an already top-notch automotive racing start-up renowned for its engineering expertise would feel the need to partner with a Tech Consulting and Talent Management company?

The synergies, in many ways, are obvious. Formula racing is an intensely competitive and demanding sport. It means split second decision-making, crunching millions of gigabytes of data in real-time by both man and machine, pattern recognition…all in a pressure cooker atmosphere. It’s as much about driving skills as it is about having the cutting-edge IT and digital engineering expertise needed to give the car that millisecond of advantage over the competition because that’s really all it takes to differentiate a winner from an also ran.

While my discussion with Jan and Ian touched upon several topics ranging from racing and talent to skills and technology (and how Jurassic we felt in comparison to our tech savvy children), three themes stood out for me:

Drivers And Engineers From Different Generations: Broadening The Net To Catch A New Pool Of Skilled Digital Engineers

Formula racing, for me, has always been a bit of an odd couple pairing of young drivers and very experienced engineers. How will this dynamic play out when Formula E audiences mostly comprise Gen Z and Y fans, where a Formula E race with about 30-40,000 people in attendance averages about 34 years?

Like other sports, the age profile of racing car drivers is simply a reflection of young people having sharper reflexes and being at their physical peak. Indeed, both Mercedes-EQ’s Formula E drivers, Stoffel Vandoorne and Nyck de Vries, are in their mid-20s and at the top of their racing game.

So young drivers and young audiences and, then, the third cog in the wheel – the car engineers. As the focus shifts from traditional mechanical / electrical engineers to digital engineers, what does this mean for automotive or motorsports companies in terms of who they should be looking for and how they should go about looking for this kind of engineering talent to build a new generation of winning cars? 

“We tend to say that there are experienced engineers working on the cars but when it comes to the smart world and Smart Industry – data analytics and AI, for instance – the engineers are specialists, from the younger generation and from all over the world,” said Jan. “So there’s definitely been a big shift from a traditional engineer to a digital engineer.”

While both Jan and Ian noted that there would undoubtedly still be a need for traditional specialists in certain areas, transformation was imminent. “On the engineering side, we currently have an incredible cross-section within the team. The major challenge here is that when we need to recruit, we tend to return to the same sources and that needs to consciously change,” said Ian. “Broadening the search for talent is going to be a game changer.”

And Tech Consulting and Talent Management firms, with their global pool of technical and digital engineering specialists, represent these new talent pools. The crux, in this particular instance, is how such a Tech company can support an established racing team to build pioneering next gen technology platforms and succeed in the fiercely competitive world of motorsport racing?

This might happen in multiple ways. For a start, they might strengthen a company’s core team and competencies, while working collaboratively to enrich their existing knowledge base. Second, they might bring in new expertise which the company might not have possessed; Ian, for instance, mentioned that they had gained new competencies in AI with Modis. Thirdly, companies, including Mercedes-EQ’s Formula E team, could stand to benefit by leveraging highly flexible, technically skilled resources on an as-needed basis – whether temporary, permanent or freelance – to accelerate their transformation process and catapult them to pole position.

In other words, the Mercedes-EQ Formula E team aims to leverage its tech talent management strategy to refine its existing knowledge base and acquire new competencies in data analytics, machine learning, AI and other advanced technologies to innovate, gain an edge over the competition and…..quite simply, win.

Sports vs Gaming: Finding The Right Recipe to Merge The Two Worlds

This year will mark only the 7^th season of the Formula E Championships. With the sport still not well entrenched, could Formula A (autonomous, electric car racing) likely overhaul it in the popularity stakes? Not quite, going by Robocars’ plans. When I met with the owner of Roborace many moons ago, he mentioned that autonomous car racing was more about gaming than sports. So my question to Jan and Ian was whether Formula E was at a cross roads where it could end up being both a bit of a sport and a game?

It’s a distinct possibility going by what the Mercedes team did when the pandemic threw the racing season out of gear; it quickly revved up its e-racing platform. This reeled in the fans, keeping them interested and engaged during the protracted racing drought. What was different here was the seismic shift in the way the younger generation interacted with and consumed the content online. Ian mentioned that his 12 year old son, rather than concentrating on the racing feed, was following the race from the perspective of his interaction with the other fans and spectators. “From an HR perspective, it comes full circle to keeping our eyes open to not only the traditional disciplines but being flexible enough to look at new disciplines and bringing both worlds together,” Ian said. “If we can get the recipe right, then there’s absolutely an opportunity to merge the two worlds of sports and gaming.”

Speed vs Sustainability: An Engineering Challenge Like No Other  

The third theme that piqued my curiosity was the speed vs sustainability issue. Where Modis and Mercedes have excelled is in showing how speed and sustainability can be reconciled in ways that are smart and appealing, that complement, rather than clash.  “Formula E is a very good example of how sustainability and technology can be combined with an attractive sport, i.e., racing,” noted Jan. The main goal, of course, remains to optimize the performance of the car on the track—from the engine / cylinder arrangement to power, torque to acceleration—to make it stronger, faster, better. In other words, this is an engineering challenge like no other and a siren call for highly skilled digital engineering and technical talent to constantly move the needle on what can be achieved in terms of creating cars that are simultaneously smart, speedy, and sustainable.

Together, Mercedes-EQ’s Formula E team with Modis in its corner, have the talent, the technology, the vision, and the hunger to win in the high-octane world of Formula racing. I am really keen to see if this partnership gets off to a winning start when the first race of the season gets underway in Saudi Arabia this weekend.