McLaren preparing for emotional final races as Formula E team winds down

As the Formula E season enters its final two race weekends – double-headers in Berlin and London – McLaren is getting ready to close a four-year chapter in electric racing.

After entering Extreme E in 2022, the brand joined the Formula E fold a year later, absorbing the back-to-back double championship winning Mercedes team. But with its title sponsor exiting at the end of this season, McLaren’s Formula E operation will wind down.

“McLaren Racing announced its planned exit from the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship in April following a strategic review of our racing portfolio and a shift in focus towards our 2027 entry into the FIA World Endurance Championship,” is the official line from McLaren. “It’s been fantastic to follow the team’s on-track battles over the past three seasons and we thank everyone for their hard work and incredible dedication.”

While there was hope that another rescue could come be actioned – much like how McLaren took over Mercedes – RACER understands that, despite considerable genuine interest, a deal could not be completed in the six month timeframe required to get the team ready for next season. When McLaren came in, it had more than a year to prepare, time it simply doesn’t have this time around.

“It's going to be emotional, that's for sure,” team principal Ian James said of the final stretch of the season. “The team are consummate professionals, and I've seen – despite all the challenges over the years, the highs and the lows – that when we get into the event itself, that absolute focus that we have, making sure that we can wring every last ounce of performance out of the package that we've got.

Last week NEOM McLaren unveiled a special one-off livery for its final races in London featuring the blue of Oxagon, NEOM's reimagined industrial city on the Red Sea, marking a significant shift from the vibrant papaya orange that has adorned McLaren’s Formula E cars for the last three seasons.

“This is the second time we've had the opportunity to do a special livery in collaboration with NEOM, but this time with Oxagon,” said James. “It's always very special when we do something like this.

“I've been told it's to be referred to as an ‘away kit’, although it seems a bit ironic since it’ll be at our home race, [but] the car looks mega. It's got the DNA of both partnerships in there.”

While there’s already a lot of focus on the London double-header in two weeks, this weekend the team will have two races (and the young driver test) to tackle in Berlin.

“Bizarrely, we've got just about a quarter of the season still to go, so it's far from over,” said James. “The team is working hard, preparing for Berlin. It's going to be one hell of a fight right to the end.

“We've got those four races. We need to execute everyone perfectly if we're going to achieve our goal, which is very clearly to have top three in both the Drivers’ and the Teams’ championship.”

Berlin is a familiar venue in Formula E, but it's not as simple as turning up and picking up where they left off. This year, Turns 3 and 4, and Turns 9 and 10 have been altered, and the overall track length has increased, albeit by only two meters. There's also the added complexity of Pit Boost fast charging pit stops taking place in the first race of the weekend.

“In Berlin we've seen the odd change over the years, and of course, we've actually run it both clockwise and counterclockwise as well before we just switch things up,” explained James. “This year, we've got Pit Boost coming into the equation for the first race as well. So there's always something which challenges the engineers and the team to get the most out of the car.

“But they've now got the data from the FIA. We know what the track looks like, so we're working hard on making sure that that preparation in the simulator is as good as it can be. And for us, it's just part of the normal business racing in Formula E.”