Outspoken or onto something? Ticktum clarifies comments about Formula E driving and stewarding standards

Ahead of the Miami E-Prix, Dan Ticktum garnered attention for a social media outburst about Formula E stewarding. The Cupra Kiro driver had been hit during the Mexico City E-Prix, and the drivers involved went unpunished.

Formula E’s rough and tumble nature tends to result in regular contact – some of it fair, some of it less so – and while the Cupra Kiro driver has been the most vocal about it, he’s not the only person in the paddock thinking it. For that, he’s unapologetic, although looking back, he appreciates a rant on Instagram might not have been the best way to get his point across.

“Well, firstly, I sort of stand by the context of what I said,” he told RACER at the Miami E-Prix. “Maybe not the best format to do it in, the way I did it, posting a video on Instagram, but to be brutally honest, all the team principals and to an extent, the drivers have been voicing concerns and trying to, obviously help the championship improve, to make the racing fairer and sort of better. And not a lot seems to happen.

“That was basically where the frustration [comes from] and why I decided to say something publicly about it. Because I've obviously been hit pretty hard by it. I've had two DNFs with drivers making contact with me, neither of which received a penalty. So I just don't really think that's good enough, to be honest.

“So I don't think I said anything particularly wrong. But at the end of the day, obviously, drivers are not supposed to speak up against ‘the government’, if you like. But I'd be very surprised if any of the drivers disagreed with my sentiments.”

For his part, Ticktum acknowledges that the stewards have a hard job, especially when the very nature of Formula E races – with energy saving at their heart – leading to close pack racing where contact is inevitable. But he feels that clearer definitions in the rules could help both sides.

“I recognize that they have an incredibly tough job, the stewards policing these races at the moment, and that is mainly down to the energy budgets we have,” he said. “So there's a lot of lifting, a lot of coasting, which is encouraging a lot of half-moves, and races that are basically dependent on strategy and luck rather than the driver’s merit.

“Obviously the stewards have their guidelines. I mean, I take issue with the word 'guideline' when we're trying to police a race, because what the guideline does is just opens up gray areas. “As soon as you have a gray area, it's at people's discretion, and they might be lenient, they might not. There's obviously just a lack of consistency.

A promising race for Ticktum in Mexico was derailed by a collision with Antonio Felix da Costa (right). Simon Galloway/Getty Images

“I think the stewards, and the race director, to do with the energy and how these races are sort of panning out at the moment, are very much up against it. They probably need triple the stewarding team to keep on top of everything. So I recognize it's a very hard job, and I don't really have an issue with anyone in particular here. They either need more support or the rules need to be worded differently.

“I'm just highlighting the issues. You can't have drivers crashing into the back of people and losing four places like I did before the incident in Mexico. Because they're so lenient now, all the drivers, if you were to have an aggression scale, we're all at 90 to 100 percent because people know they get away with things. So I think soon as you start handing out a couple of penalties, everyone immediately reins it in.

Clearing up comments he made about “talent”, Ticktum clarified that he wasn’t disparaging the driver level in the series, but rather emphasizing that drivers weren’t able to fully showcase their talents due to the type of races they have to contest. And while he’d like to see moves policed and punished better, he also wants there to be a fine balance and overtaking not become so regulated drivers feel they can’t push hard anymore.

“Some of my comments were taken a bit out of context,” he said. “I said, ‘this is not a championship of talent’. What I mean by that is the races are run by energy, it's not enough about merit. But all of us drivers can quite easily adapt to whatever the regulations are.

“We’re the best drivers in the world on this grid, so I just think it just needs to be slightly tighter. I also said in my Instagram video, I don't want it to go too far the other way. There needs to be close racing, a bit of contact here and there, and allowed for it to be entertaining. Obviously, it's a spectacle at the end of the day. But I just think it's too far in the other direction.”

Team principal Russell O’Hagan said that the team supported the message Ticktum was trying to get across even if it didn’t support how he went about it, but admitted that managing drivers when not in their position is always going to be something difficult for a team boss.

“It's a difficult one, and it's something that over the last four years we've had a bit of trial and error of letting him be more Dan, and holding the reins tighter,” O'Hagan told RACER. “I think for all of us, it's quite hard to put ourselves in the driver's shoes and understand the pressure points where they have but I think Dan is very good at assessing the situation.

“We spoke to him a lot about some of his frustrations, and honestly, we couldn't sit down with him and explain why some cars have been penalized and not, so we support his frustrations. We don't condone the way he went about communicating some of them, but it's always a work in progress of not just Dan, but how you manage drivers, how you get the best out of them, how you support them, how you encourage them.

“It's a fine line, but we're very fond of supporting him everywhere we can.”

Consistently among Formula E's fastest drivers, but Ticktum has had little to smile about this season. Simon Galloway/Getty Images

From three races so far this season, Ticktum has three retirements – contact in Sao Paulo and Mexico City, and a dry setup gamble that didn’t pay off as the rain fell in Miami. He’s had the pace though – front row of the grid in the first race of the season and another qualifying Duels appearance in Mexico, plus a table-topping time in practice last weekend, the performance in there for the 2025 Jakarta E-Prix winner, but the racing gods have yet to shine down on him.

“The races are pretty horrible to be in at the moment,” he conceded. “They're very stressful, the mental capacity that you need to drive in these races at the moment is pretty huge.

“It is frustrating because the team and myself did more or less everything and we’ve got nothing out of it, and we’ve got people winning races twice starting outside the top 10. So qualifying is more or less redundant at the moment, which is obviously not how it should be. There's obviously a balance here, and it's not right at the moment. It's too much about luck.”

Nevertheless, where Porsche customer team Cupra Kiro finds itself at the moment from a performance standpoint leaves Ticktum somewhat positive, in spite of his tough start to the year.

“Hardware wise, being realistic, the car we have is not going to be the fastest at all tracks, but it is certainly good enough to be there or there abouts at pretty much every track.” he said. “Mexico is supposed to be one of our weaker tracks, practice was a nightmare, a really bad set of tires, we were going the wrong direction with the setup, and for qualifying, with a different set of tires, we just hit a reset and did what we believe and trusted our process, and immediately I was into the Duels and found some pace again.

“I think we're going to be there, or thereabouts. We understand the car well, and if the balance of how these races was a little bit better, I think I would have come away with some good points.”

A key part of keeping Ticktum motivated has been to remind him that some of last season’s top performers also went through spells outside the points, and that he also came good after some lesser results.

“It’s tough, but we just have to look forward, look up and kick start the season,” O’Hagan said. “If you look at last year, [Oliver] Rowland had five zero points finishes, [Nick] Cassidy had six. So just keeping Dan in that mindset of it's a long season, and percentage-wise, you're still not in trouble. We just have to start biasing it towards the better half.

“But we did that last year anyway. We had a difficult first few races, and we came really good – Jeddah, Monaco, London, there's some events where Dan was super, super quick, and you just have to maximize those.”