Porsche 99X Formula E Review | What’s it like to drive an electric Porsche racing car?

Formula E is an all-electric single-seater world championship that's taken place every year since 2014. It's primarily run on street tracks rather than dedicated circuits and the regulations ensure the cars are very similar with a large number of control parts including the battery. Therefore it's very different to other top-level single-seater As a motorsport fan you'll undoubtedly have your own opinion on the series format and whether it's as exciting to watch as petrol-powered single-seaters but one thing you might not be so sure about is what a Formula E car is actually like to drive. So to find out I've taken a trip to Circuit Mallorca in the Balearic Islands to have a go in Porsche's official Gen 2 Formula E car. I've been fortunate enough to drive many racing cars but this is my first time in an electric single-seater and as far as I know I'm one of the first people outside of the team to get behind the wheel. As it's the Gen 2 car this is the predecessor to the one that Porsche Works drivers Antonio Felix da Costa and Pascal Wehrlein are piloting in the 2024 championship but it's still a proper piece of kit. Headline stats are as follows it produces up to 335 brake horsepower weighs just 900 kilograms including the driver accelerates from 0 to 62 miles an hour in less than three seconds and has a top speed in excess of 170 miles an hour. Sounds impressive but the later Gen 3 cars are delivering 470 brake horsepower with an even lighter curb weight. Just because they don't make the sound of F1 cars or Le Mans hypercars doesn't mean they're not blisteringly quick and when climbing into the carbon fibre and aluminium monocoque frame it definitely feels like a bona fide single-seater. So just getting strapped into the Formula E car now and it feels every bit like a single-seater. You've got that unmistakable look ahead of you with the long nose and the halo and it's very snug in here. Apparently I've got the same body shape as Andre Lotterer who's the reserve driver which I think is a compliment. I'm quite pleased I managed to fit. It's not too bad it's just very snug. Sitting behind the wheel the car itself didn't feel hugely intimidating for some reason. Sure the charging process complete with men in rubber gloves and an insulated rescue hook makes the car look like it's ingesting half the Majorcan power grid but in reality the battery is much smaller than a Porsche Taycan turbo for example and there's less power too. That's because a the focus is on great racing rather than outright speed and b the weight of the car is always a sore subject with EVs. The fact that the gen 3 car comes in at 840 kilograms again including the driver is actually pretty impressive. So accessing the pit garage in a 300 brake horsepower as normal but in attack mode 340 brake horsepower 900 kilogram single seater. 0-60 should be about 2.8 seconds. Let's see what it feels like with the limiter off. Oh hello! Lulls you into a false sense of security just not having any engine noise as a lot of EVs do but it's certainly got some pace and the torque is instant. Wow! Coming down the back straight. Going to the hairpin there's definitely a bit of push at the front end. Tires aren't fully up to temperature yet although I don't think it'll take long they are threaded. It's got a little readout like the 992 911 cup car that tells me if the wheels are locking up which is handy. So there it is and you can just feel it. You need to keep the trail braking right on point to make sure you get the grip over the front on turning especially on this track where there's a lot of hairpins. Really good brake feel. Surprisingly good brake feel actually. I was a bit unsure because we know what it can be like with regen in the brakes. It can spoil the brake pedal feel but this is really nice. You can smell a big whiff of battery which probably should come as no surprise. Out of the slower corners you've actually got to be very careful on the power all that torque. Attack mode. After a few laps it was clear that this was one of the more physical racing cars I'd driven yet it stopped short of delivering the kind of neck melting experience that's common with other single-seaters. The steering was heavy but there wasn't the same outrageous grip levels you get from slicks both in the corners and under braking. Wow! It's just a proper racing car. It might not necessarily sound like one but you get all the usual fun, the physical experience and also most importantly the fun. It's just really good enjoyable to drive. That was good fun. Feels like a bigger version of a go-kart which sounds odd but actually I'm not complaining about that because it felt chuckable. It felt like you could push it. There was a surprising amount of push at the front end but then when you do come on the power and if you have got a bit too much steering lock on it reminds you just how much it's making and that it does do 0-62mph in 2.8 seconds. It's rear-wheel drive and it's got a lot of torque. So big takeaway from that was it was very good fun and I'll be honest I'm not an avid Formula e-watcher. I've seen it, I know the concept, I know that it's mainly if not entirely done on street circuits so taking it to I'd say a proper circuit, it's not a street circuit but again it's not Silverstone, but taking it out here it was interesting to see how it behaves compared to how I thought it would be because the physicality is still there, the general feel of a single-seater is still there but the differences I think are most noticeable in the noise obviously. It doesn't sound like any other single-seater I've driven and the tyres, they're a really really big difference, they're not slicks, they're all-weather Michelin tyres and I think the most important thing is that even though the limits are arguably lower because largely the tyres, it is still a good car for close racing. I was speaking to Andre Lotterer who's the reserve driver for the Porsche Formula E team and he was explaining that it's a car that you can jump in and you can drive it quite quickly straight away but then finding the last bit is actually quite difficult, it's really difficult and it does get quite close and obviously they've got the attack mode and other ways to differentiate and there's a huge amount of setup that they can do on the cars to change it, it's quite surprising actually, more than you'd expect but at the end of the day that was awesome awesome fun and although it's easy to say that because I've now driven it, hopefully you can just get a taster of it and if you haven't seen Formula E before then maybe give it a go because that's a good racing car regardless of whether it's petrol or EV which made a bit more noise but that's not the end of the world, it's still good racing so yeah enjoyed that. 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