New name, new ownership, new speed for Kiro

Going into last season, the ERT Formula E team had a fresh look. Rechristened Kiro Race Co., it had been bought by American firm The Forest Road Company with additional investment from a consortium that included Atlanta Hawks owner Tony Ressler and actor Sir Idris Elba, plus backing from car manufacturer Cupra.

All of that brought an upturn in performance. After years mired at the back of the grid, Kiro secured its first pole, podium, and win last season. What appeared as a giant overhaul of the organization was always likely to bring improved fortunes on track, but for team principal Russell O’Hagan, it’s been a pleasant surprise.

“In the last 16 months or so, it's been really good,” he tells RACER. “I think if you look back from the end of last season, the uptick in performance, some of the commercial things we did, if we'd imagined some 12 months before, I think we'd have been really shocked at what we came to. 

“Then by the end of last season, we started committing to sort of a four or five year business plan, which is quite unusual in motor racing. So having that in reshaping the team a little bit, moving a few positions around, which we're now kind of through the main adjustment side of that, and then this year just kind of looking to build on what we did last year.”

The high-profile investment of the team hasn’t been a case of a blank check being written and results being bought. The team’s still wise about how it spends – it has to be, with Formula E’s cost cap regulations – but it doesn’t need to worry on the cash front now. It has room to breathe.

“The investment has brought stability,” O’Hagan says. “It's not actually brought a huge increase in cash, mainly through our commitment to run the team on a commercially sustainable basis. 

“What you can have with any kind of sports investment is, you can overspend on bringing in different things, and then sometimes the results don't offer that return. So we've been trying to do it in a very organic way, in that we improve the performance, we get a little bit more commercially attractive, we bring in more sponsors... trying to do it that way, rather than sort of just come in. 

“So I would say we're still running one of, if not the, lowest budget on the grid. We're very cost efficient, which was the history of the company. But we just have that stability. We have the ability now to look long term into the future, and that makes a big difference to the team, to the people in it, to partners, to drivers, everything.”

Part of that approach is running the team “as a business, not a racing team” O’Hagan says. It might not seem like the best way to operate in an ultra competitive sport, but O’Hagan adds that it’s enabled Kiro to get the best value out of everything it does.

“Those things are sometimes at the opposite end of the scale,” he admits. “That's kind of where my job really comes in, just to make sure that we're doing things on value, not cost. 

“We're still very financially frugal and sensitive. It's finding the right things to spend their money on, then it has to grow organically, and then we have to get external partners, not just rely on ownership funds.”

With the business side of the company nailed down and future-proofed, moving up the grid is now the focus. That’s not something that’ll require as seismic a shift such a rebrand and a change of ownership. Based on how the team has already improved its fortunes compared to its previous iteration, O’Hagan believes small steps will deliver the next big strides.

“Last year we showed how strong we can be on a good day, and now this year is about trying to show how strong we can be even on a challenging day,” he says.

“It's just that smaller, iterative performance now. I always say, to be excellent on any day you have to be very good every day, because otherwise the opportunities come and they can just kind of fall through the cracks. 

“So it's just tightening up and everything. It's obviously still even getting to know the car. Everyone else is on their fourth year of the car, we're only on our second year. It's taking all those fundamental things, moving them into GEN4, and just finding ways to minimize mistakes and optimize performance. It takes time, patience, resources, and experience.”

Ditching its own in-house powertrain for a customer Porsche one – albeit the previous iteration – has been a big help for Kiro, too. O’Hagan wouldn’t confirm a continuation with the German manufacturer for next season, when the GEN4 cars are introduced, but he hinted at it, and was positive about the future direction of the burgeoning relationship.

“We can't say too much,” he said. “I don't think our GEN4 plans would surprise anybody too much, let's put it that way. And that relationship with Porsche has been very, very good. It's something that we've both invested a lot of time and energy into, and we kind of have a plan for what that will look like over GEN4 and efficient use of resources, communication. 

“So it's, it's going to be, I think, a really exciting stage of the championship, and an exciting era of our relationship with Porsche, with cooperation.”