What will really nag away at him – unless he can pull off something special in Seoul – is that Lotterer is set to conclude his Formula E career without a win. Podiums pepper his record, first over two seasons with Techeetah and then across the past three with Porsche. But victories have slipped through his fingers. This season now nearly passed promised more, both for Lotterer and team-mate Pascal Wehrlein. But after playing the team game and dutifully following Wehrlein home to break Porsche’s Formula E duck with a 1-2 in Mexico City, the season has turned into an anti-climax. Lotterer even drew a complete points blank in the London double-header and remains a lowly 11th in the standings, one place and two points behind his equally disappointed team-mate.
Nevertheless, he doesn’t come across as bitter and there are no parting barbs for a series in which his reputation has been slightly tarnished by the number of collisions he has been involved in over the past five years.
“It’s a new way of racing,” Lotterer states. “I’ve never seen such a level in quality and a lot of things are very equal in terms of chassis, tyres and brakes. Last year we saw more differences through the grid but mostly because of the qualifying format. But this year” – with the new ‘duels’ system that has gone down well with the drivers – “it’s very consistent. We’ve upped our game a lot in qualifying. But if you operate at 99% and leave 1% somewhere on the table, you don’t win. Teams are operating at 100% and it really gets down to the last little detail. If it does not go 100% for you, you are not there. Everyone is performing well, it’s the last season of the Gen2 car so everyone knows it well and also drivers know the championship. You have to put everything together perfectly.”
What about that amount of contact? Of course, it’s not just Lotterer. Everyone on this high-quality grid has stories to tell and are forced to get their elbows out. It goes with the tight city-street territory. Although it seems there has been much less controversy this term. “It seems like, a little bit,” he agrees. “More due to the fact similar people are at the front and the grid is not so mixed up.
“But contact is inevitable to be honest, it’s somehow a part of it. If you go to these places and expect us to overtake… Most of the places you don’t even have the apex that’s clean. The chances for things to go wrong are quite high and you always look like idiots afterwards, but there’s just not really the space. It’s a boxing ring.”
Lotterer is a straight talker and has never been one for corporate BS… Which makes his earnestness about Formula E’s environmental messaging seem more genuine. Again, he doesn’t have to stick to the script, especially now – but the series appears to have made him think differently about his sport and the world it exists in.