New team and a fresh start for Ticktum in Formula E

As Fortescue Zero Racing revealed itself to the world in London on Friday, Dan Ticktum spoke of using his opportunity with the new team to “turn over a new leaf” in his career.

Ticktum’s undeniable speed has often shared column inches with controversial radio soundbites but now he wants to change that narrative once and for all, and he feels he finds himself in an ideal environment to do that.

“First and foremost, they get me as a person, and they understand who I am,” Ticktum tells RACER. “Gary [Ekerold, the general manager of the Jaguar TCS Racing project at Fortescue Zero] actually a few months ago, before the season ended, invited me to the MotoGP to sit and have a chat with him. He bothered to take time out to hear me out, and I respected that enormously.

“So I wanted to work for him there because no one’s ever really done that. Most people jump on the bandwagon or Google me and think that this is the way Dan is. But I’m sure a lot of people at Kiro would have said that I wasn’t like that and I was good fun to work with.”

Adding to that, while Ticktum is always a guarantee for box office social media content regardless of how a race goes, he insists there wasn’t a big fallout at former team Cupra Kiro.

“I feel like me and Kiro didn’t fall out,” he says. “They never doubted my speed or doubted me as a driver. I just think we had some communication things a bit wrong sometimes, about who they wanted me to be, and we won’t dwell on that.

“But I feel like everyone’s very behind me here. I haven’t felt that for a while. Not that they weren’t behind me, it just all feels a bit fresh and exciting.”

One fan Ticktum has in his new team is Fortescue founder Andrew Forrest, whose face beams with enough energy to power a street when the subject of his first driver signing comes up.

“I love Dan,” he enthuses. “And the fact that he’s had a couple of scrapes, I mean, that reminds me of anyone who’s had to really succeed. Life is about the mistakes you make, and you learn from them. You never learn from your successes, so I think we’ve got a fantastic guy in Dan.

“I reckon [he’s] a little weapon,” he added. “He’s got his humility, he’s got the drive, he’s had a few scrapes. He’s very, very talented.”

Ticktum had multiple offers on the table for this season. Kiro – which has replaced Ticktum with compatriot Jake Hughes for the upcoming season – was also a possibility, but the two-time race winner says there are “a number of reasons” that drew him to the Fortescue project.

The team will also be running Jaguar powertrains, and while the incoming GEN4 era leaves plenty of unknowns with all the cars yet to be measured against one another on track officially, the brand has won three of the last four teams’ championships across its factory team and fellow customer Envision Racing, while it won the manufacturers’ trophy in 2023-24.

That pedigree means that there are high expectations of the latest Jaguar powertrain – which is actually developed in collaboration with Fortescue – and what Ticktum has seen so far has backed that up.

“I’m incredibly impressed with some of the things I’ve seen at their factory and some of the people I’ve met,” he says. “So if, for whatever reason, we do suffer issues, I can’t envision how anyone would overcome them quicker than the team of people I’ve seen.”

Ticktum has made the move after five years with a team that was NIO when he joined, before transitioning into ERT and then Kiro. That team went from languishing at the back when he started in the 2021–22 season to being a race-winning outfit by the time he departed, and the prospect of building up another team is one that motivates Ticktum.

“The goal there was kind of similar to the goal that we have here,” he says. “I think we’ll be starting a lot further in front of where me and NIO were five years ago, but I enjoy the challenge of trying to get something going as quickly as possible. It’s very different to how I started with Kiro and what this team is.

It’s still basically a new team, though – it might have taken over Penske Autosport’s entry and some of its facilities, but at least 40 percent of the Fortescue Zero workforce has had to be brought in after Stellantis redeployed its own staff it had assigned to Jay Penske’s operation. So, although he’s excited about his new adventure, Ticktum is keeping his own expectations in check.

“Honestly, I can’t even begin to set goals at the moment,” he said. “I just want to get the best out of myself, and I think in this environment, I certainly will. Yes, obviously we all want to win the championship, but I have no idea how feasible that is at the moment with where we are. I would like to win a couple of races at least.

“I’ve come here with one goal, and that’s to make things as easy as possible for the team. Work with them and learn as fast as possible, and be motivated and motivate them.”