This week, the NEOM McLaren Formula E Team will be heading to Miami for the fifth round of Season 11.

Sam, Taylor and Team Principal Ian James are here to help us prepare for the event. As well as hearing from the team, we’ll also be explaining some key FE terminology, recapping the season so far, and catching up with a team member on their priorities this weekend.

Key info

“I’m really looking forward to the Miami E-Prix. It’s been a while since we’ve been racing, and I’ve missed being out on track.

“The Homestead-Miami Speedway is a new track for us, and I’m expecting it to be a challenging pack-style race, which will hopefully provide opportunities for us to continue our recent form.”

“I’m very excited about racing in Miami this weekend. This will be our first trip there as a team, and it should be extremely fun.

“We come to the Homestead-Miami Speedway off the back of some very successful rounds in Jeddah for NEOM McLaren, and I can’t wait to contribute to scoring some good points for the team in the United States. Bring it on!”

“It has been a few weeks since our last race weekend, making us all very eager to get back on track. The first four rounds of the season have proven very fruitful for the NEOM McLaren Formula E Team. The team finds itself in P2 in the Teams' standings, with three podium finishes so far this season.

“The team now heads to Miami for its first ever visit to the Homestead-Miami Speedway. We are coming into the race weekend in strong form, however, we are well aware that Miami presents us with a fresh challenge. With such a competitive field as we find in this World Championship, we cannot afford to become complacent or take our recent form for granted. Everyone at NEOM McLaren has been working incredibly hard to give Sam and Taylor the best chance possible to fight for more podiums, and I cannot wait to go racing!”

The season so far

This has been our strongest start to a Formula E season since making our debut in 2023/24. NEOM McLaren sit second in the Teams’ Championship, with one Pole and three podiums, having scored 67 points, just one off first.

Taylor became the youngest Pole sitter last time out in Saudi Arabia, finishing third and second in the two races, while Sam Bird finished seventh and 12th.

FEducation: Pack racing

Our aim is to ensure everyone is as equipped as possible to follow Season 11, so whether you’re new to following Formula E or a long-time fan, we’ll be explaining some of the series’ most complicated terminology, jargon, acronyms, and technical terms to aid your understanding. This week, it’s pack racing.

Pack racing has become increasingly common in Formula E over the last couple of seasons, but what does it mean and why does it occur? It can look chaotic on track, but it produces thrilling racing and there's a good reason behind it.

In simple terms, pack racing is when a large group of drivers are bunched together. With the drivers all in a slipstream, this results in less wind resistance and helps to conserve energy - a key strategic component in FE races due to the car’s limited battery capacity.

This results in an increased number of overtakes as drivers jostle for position in an attempt to remain in the train – the idea being that by dropping back and saving energy as part of a pack, a driver will have more power later on in the race, allowing them to push harder in the final laps, when those around them might be struggling for battery.

What to watch out for in Miami

Each weekend, we’ll catch up with a different member of the NEOM McLaren Formula E Team and ask them what their priorities are for the upcoming E-Prix. This weekend, we’ve spoken with Performance Engineer, Daniela Klausser to get an insight into how the team prepares to go racing on a brand new track.

"The two biggest parts of my role are event preparation and post-event analysis to make sure that our car systems are in the best window possible.

"On a normal race weekend, I will work from Bicester Heritage, our Formula E team base. I am responsible for processing the data that we get from the sensors on the cars. I will also take care of the driver overlays, which is the comparison of Sam and Taylor’s laps to work out where they differ and how they can gain time. Additionally, I will review things such as, how we can improve our race starts and our battery management, and will be delegated various other jobs throughout the weekend by our engineers, as we all share the workload. These are usually more sporadic and unplanned pieces of work that maybe don’t occur every weekend.

"This weekend’s event in Miami will be a brand-new race for the team, which will present various challenges. One of the unknowns is the grip level we’ll encounter on this track, this impacts our energy management and brake settings because the apex speed can either drop or increase significantly. We’ll also often find bumps on the track, which we weren’t aware of from our simulations.

"We’ve done a lot of analysis in the lead-up to the event, with Taylor and Sam both driving the circuit on the simulator, both driving the circuit on the simulator, the team then uses this data to prepare the initial software settings."

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