Currently with Mahindra, Alexander Sims has confirmed he will leave Formula E after the season ends because he doesn't fit into the racing format, and plans to continue his career in endurance racing
Alexander Sims has confirmed he will leave Formula E after the close of the current season, which will still have three double rounds in New York, London and Seoul until the end of the race in August. With only two points scored in 2022 - both in race 1 in Berlin, when he started from the front row - the Briton acknowledged his discouragement with the results below expectations and admitted he chose to leave the category - even after talking to other teams for a possible place on next year's grid.
"It's been tough at times, honestly, and it's starting to impact my outlook on what I want to do, where I want to be in the long term," Sims told UK portal The Race. "Nobody likes to be less competitive than they would like to be, and with no answers as to why. That's the main thing for me. I actually made the decision [not to participate in Formula E after 2022]," he stressed.
"Naturally, I wanted to explore what other options would exist outside of Formula E," he revealed. "There were a few and I was able to decide myself. After Nürburgring and Le Mans, I gave myself two or three months of 'we know the situation with the team, look at other possibilities as well,'" he pointed out.
Interestingly, the only highlight of Sims' season so far was precisely the point that made the Briton lose even more enchantment with the electric single-seater category. In the first race in Berlin, Alex took advantage of a penalty suffered by Sebastien Buemi to 'take' the Swiss driver's seat in the knockout stages, and his performance was impressive.
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Clash after clash, always regarded as the 'underdog' of the race, the Briton was leaving all the drivers behind until he crashed head-on with Edoardo Mortara - who took pole - at the end. During the race, however, Sims couldn't keep pace with the Mahindra car and finished only ninth, taking his only two points of the championship.
The discouragement of not understanding the reasons why the car worked so well affected Sims, who could not explain the Mahindra's lack of performance in laps that the driver considered good - but which were far behind the competitors. So the driver started looking at other possibilities, as it became increasingly difficult to understand the behavior of the single-seater.
"The car felt good that day, but we couldn't understand why," he explained. "That's my biggest problem. I don't know what to try with the car, because even when we are fast, we don't see much difference in the data, we can't understand what is giving me that feeling," he lamented.
"Those laps in the shootout were, I don't want to say easy, but we would just do one lap - and boom, we are competitive, we are in contention -, another lap - boom again, we are still competitive," he assessed. "It was normal, I had several laps like that during the season, where I felt good, but I was 1s or 0s5 behind," he pointed out.
As for the future, it seems that Sims has it clear in his mind that endurance racing is a strong possibility. The Briton admitted difficulties with the format of single-seater racing, which relies on drivers spending considerably less time in their cars - especially in Formula E. So, besides confirming his exit again, he gave hints that the continuation of his career may be in long-duration racing.
"I think it's just the format of single-seaters, especially in Formula E, with a very short amount of time in the driving seat, high pressure, a very competitive environment - which is great, because when you go well, you feel like you beat some of the best in the world," he admitted. "But it's just not something that's 100% me. Endurance is a better place for me, personally," he noted.
"It's just that the [Formula E] format is not something for me, which is a shame because I'm passionate about EVs and it seemed like a good pairing to me," he pointed out. "From a sporting point of view, I tend to overthink things and there are a lot of unknown points in Formula E that I'm not confident enough to ignore and move on," he continued.
"I overthink things, and that would probably be an advantage in endurance, because you have a lot more time in the car, you can set things up better, so this is going to be my last season in Formula E," he craved. "And I made that decision on my own," Sims confirmed.
Finally, Sims admitted that his thoughts at the time of entering Formula E were completely different from what he thinks now, somewhat disappointed with the path things took in his time in the category. Alex highlighted the daily work of the drivers, especially when it comes to car modifications, as the main pleasure factor in their career - again, something that can be found more easily in endurance racing.
"I feel very strange talking about the fact that maybe racing in Formula E is not something I enjoy very much at the moment," he said. "It's because I think for the eyes that see it from the outside, and even for me before I got into Formula E, the thought is usually, 'this is amazing. High performance, world championship, why wouldn't you want to be there?", questioned the - still - Mahindra driver.
"But at the end of the day, it's the daily work. It's the work you do day by day and the sense of pleasure you get out of it," he explained. "As I said, I get along with everybody in the team. I've never had a problem with that. It's the racing format, it doesn't work for me," he finished.