Why spanning different genres has lent Lotterer's career longevity

As we walk back to the Rome E-Prix pitlane – or, as it’s known on every other weekend of the year, the Piazzale dell’Industria - from Porsche’s plush hospitality unit, Andre Lotterer makes a big claim. He reckons he has the longest continuous single-seater racing career currently going. When you consider that Lotterer is known far more (at least, in European circles) for his endurance racing exploits than his single-seater exploits, that’s a hell of a claim.

He then stops to consider Fernando Alonso, but then remembers the Spanish driver’s year testing in 2002 and that Alonso’s career in racing began a season after. The other big-ticket contender in Kimi Raikkonen retired at the end of 2021. Besides, the laconic Finn spent the 2010 and 2011 seasons bothering gravel and hauling trucks around ovals without any token single-seater appearances.

Having been in the single-seater game uninterrupted - predominantly in Japan - since 1998, Lotterer might just take the spoils on this one. Back in the final vestiges of the 20th century, Lotterer was a 16-year-old kicking off his career in cars with a Formula BMW Junior title victory, notching up 14 victories and earning himself a move up to the full-fat ADAC-regulated FBMW championship. He won that too, winning 15 times.

24 years on, Lotterer is the grizzled veteran still sticking it to the young guns in Formula E. And, if you’ll pardon the cliche, he’s showing no signs of slowing down. The German-born, Belgium-raised ace remains as highly motivated as ever.

Part of that motivation has been in Lotterer’s move to Formula E in 2017, a move of which he was initially sceptical. He admits that when the championship first broke ground in 2014, he was turned off by the slower speeds compared to those he was used to in Super Formula, but conversations with other drivers changed his mind – leading him to throw his lot in with the DS Techeetah squad to link up with Jean-Eric Vergne at the Franco-Chinese squad.

“It was completely different,” Lotterer explains. “For me, you can't compare it to anything. I mean, when it started, you kind of looked at it and laughed a bit because the cars are not quick or you know, the power is not very high. And you're racing at 250mph at Le Mans or in Super Formula you're doing Formula 1 speeds, so you look at it and you think it cannot be too hard. But I heard from drivers that it was not easy. And then I joined, and it was a real driving challenge because it's not always about speed.

“It's about really mastering what you get given and the Formula E recipe, the races in the city narrow tracks, as far as that is from a proper race track, so it's bumpy, sometimes no grip in the all-weather tyres, relatively heavy car, energy management too. Everyone’s got the same power and performance, so it’s the hardest championship I've ever entered and the hardest challenge in terms of driving I ever got. So it was not comparable to anything before.

Lotterer was initially sceptical of Formula E - until he joined up, finding it one of his hardest challenges

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

“And the challenge really grew on me because it is so tough, and you get sucked into it with every little detail. There's no other championship where you can go in so many details to seek efficiency and smart solutions. It's really, really impressive how much you can do in Formula E. And engineers love it. I think other championships are getting more and more restricted in terms of what you can do. But here, just from the software point of view, all the solutions you can try to come up with are very challenging.”

Leaving Techeetah after two years, Lotterer reunited with Porsche – with whom he was agonisingly close to securing a fourth Le Mans victory in 2017 before an oil pressure problem struck his 919 Hybrid down in its prime as his #1 team was leading. Porsche withdrew from the field of endurance racing after that season to focus on its new Formula E project, which has built up in strength from occasional podium finishes to securing its first race win in style at Mexico’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

But the spoils went to Pascal Wehrlein, not Lotterer – as the latter played the team game to ensure Porsche didn’t just secure a win, but locked out the most desirable two podium places. Although Lotterer’s post-race countenance yielded a tinge of disappointment that he couldn’t be the one to secure the Stuttgart firm’s first Formula E race, he says that his mistake in qualifying meant that he was willing to accept the role of tail-gunner to Wehrlein in Mexico City.

"When Formula E started, you kind of looked at it and laughed a bit because the cars are not quick [...] And then I joined, and it was a real driving challenge because it's not always about speed" Andre Lotterer

“I was very happy for everyone at the team.” Lotterer reflects. “You know, there's a lot of energy that's been put in this project, and also for me since the beginning. And we got close a few times, especially Pascal, he got his [Puebla 2021] win robbed. But I accepted the situation from the beginning, as I made a little mistake in qualifying and started behind Pascal and we said ‘we won't attack each other, we do the race together’.

“And it's an advantage in Formula E if you do that, because you don't burn energy, especially if you have both cars together. So it's a really strategic aspect. And this is where you're a professional works driver, you know, and you just have to qualify in front. It would have been the same the other way around. So no hard feelings there. Obviously, we all want to win. But in this case, it was like that.”

Regardless, Porsche’s win underlined a strong upswing in performance compared to the marque’s previous couple of seasons in the all-electric championship. Even though the hardware is to the same specification as last year’s car, following the homologation of the components ahead of the 2020-21 season, the team has been able to unlock the door to the higher echelons of the championship.

Contrast that with last season, where Lotterer was unable to manage a point in the first five rounds of the championship. Wehrlein had considerably more luck in getting on the scoresheet back then, opening his account with fifth at the Diriyah season opener, but Porsche generally struggled with a lack of consistency compared to this year’s bright start.

Lotterer accepted following team-mate Wehrlein home for Porsche's first Formula E win

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

But the performance was always there, contends Lotterer. Instead, and particularly from his side of the garage, the team was beset by moments of poor luck – and Lotterer admits that in trying to over-correct for those moments, it allowed more mistakes to creep in and disturb any fragments of rhythm that he and his team had been able to corral together.

“I think last year, we probably had the performance, but it really never came together,” he explains. “It was something in between either we had penalties or unlucky situations or mistakes on my side. And it was just like bad rhythm there. But I think in terms of performance, the car probably had deserved much better, or we all deserve much better.

“And we just stayed focused calm and putting everything together and keep working hard. And it just a much better flow now, overall. The qualifying format helps. It's not as much as a lottery, let's say to put it together. So there's more consistency there. And then probably what the car is worth is being reflected more consistently – at least, that’s what I hope for the rest of the season! When you start the season like this, you're just in a better rhythm.

“Last year, the season started bad with the puncture in Riyadh, and then small mistakes with accidents and that just put me on the back foot all the time, and then you just try to force it a bit and it doesn't work. So now, you have [good results] in the pocket and you just keep that rhythm. And I think also it's slightly more civilised this year with the similar people qualifying at the front, who you race in a bit in a quieter way, I think.”

With the momentum now behind Lotterer after a trying few seasons, he’s enjoying his time at the sharp end of the Formula E grid. The loquacity at which he describes his current experience in the championship belies the common myth that sportspeople beyond age of 40 are reaching their expiry date, and he gives no impression that he’s tired of life in racing after nearly a quarter-century of duelling in racing cars.

The longevity of Lotterer in the world of motorsport has largely precipitated from his desire and ability to transcend more than a single discipline. When opportunities in European and international single-seater categories, as Lotterer describes it, hit “the end of the road”, he was offered an opportunity to go to Japan by Eddie Irvine’s manager Enrico Zanarini when testing for Jaguar. Although Lotterer was living on one-year contracts, he says that the purity of racing in Formula Nippon/Super Formula and Super GT was an incredibly fulfilling experience.

“For me, Japan was the best way to establish myself as a professional because I was a Jaguar test driver in F1, but I was a bit at the end of the road. So Enrico Zanarini, Eddie Irvine's manager, had contacts in Japan. He said, ‘Why don't you go to Japan? I can call someone,’ so I went for an audition. It was a one-year contract every time, but I quickly realised that I was living at the core of my passion: racing formula cars and Super GTs. They're awesome cars, with super grippy tyres on fantastic tracks.

Lotterer (pictured here in 2004) spent his first three Formula Nippon seasons at Nakajima Racing, before moving to TOM'S Racing for the rest of his career in Japan

Photo by: Yasushi Ishihara

“The essence of motorsport there was just very pure – it was just show up, [the teams were] small structures, but what happens on the track and behind the wheel was extremely pure, and the speed was really high. So I just enjoyed my passion, which was driving.

“For sure, I was off the radar for a long time. But what I was doing there was really fulfilling me and it's a different culture, but in terms of motorsport, they do things right. And they put the energy in the right things. Of course, they're not using it as a big marketing platform; it’s like a cultural activity. Yeah, you have car brands, and they have their motorsport departments, but they have a lot of history in motorsport and they've established really nice structures; good, professional teams and I felt in good hands there.

“I kept continuing and it helped me develop a lot as a driver and sharpened my skills; to always go race or practice at Suzuka or Sugo, where there’s not much run-off, you have to be so precise to keep racing those cars, so it was a big plus for me.”

Beyond that, Lotterer’s career has spawned one-off cameos in Formula 1 and ChampCar, along with less sporadic appearances in endurance-focused GT racing and even two races in A1GP. He’s someone who races for the sheer thrill of it, reaching near-ubiquity across all the big racing championships.

"All in all, I really just enjoyed being a Formula 1 driver for a weekend - it was just actually fun. It was a gift, to be honest, to be able to have that" Andre Lotterer

Of those, the one-and-done drive with Caterham’s fading F1 team in 2014 is arguably the most memorable – even if it only lasted a single lap. Amid the team’s changing management, as founder Tony Fernandes sold up to the mysterious Engavest group that summer, Lotterer was tapped up to replace Kamui Kobayashi for the Belgian Grand Prix at short notice, with no testing and without experience of F1 machinery in over a decade.

“I was quite established [by then],” recalls Lotterer. “In 2014 I won Le Mans for the third time, I was racing Super Formula; I felt like I'm pretty much at the top of my game. I thought, ‘If this challenge goes well, cool; if it doesn't, it's not gonna collapse my career or anything.’ But it was a risk because I was not able to test the car or anything else. To just go in there and if I don't do well, it doesn't look good for all the Le Mans drivers or all the Super Formula drivers - I'd been leading there and if I don't do well, they're also not going to look good. I felt like I had a global responsibility to do well!”

In a wet qualifying session, Lotterer outqualified team-mate Marcus Ericsson by a full second at the first attempt and was only half-a-tenth away from Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez. In that, Lotterer yielded a glimpse at the talent that had passed F1 by. Cruelly, however, he was unable to show any more as his race came to an end after just a single lap, suffering an electrical problem that proved terminal.

Lotterer's F1 career lasted one lap before his Caterham CT05 "popped a fuse" on a kerb at Spa.

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Lotterer was offered further outings by Caterham but politely declined, having felt that his experience with the team were enough to scratch the F1 itch.

“It was a bit of a rush, I just did a bit of simulator between the seat fit and showed up, got used to the car, qualified in front of my team-mate, so that was already a success, but in the race unfortunately the car had popped a fuse over a kerb and then turned off, which was a shame for the one and only race. All in all, I really just enjoyed being a Formula 1 driver for a weekend - it was just actually fun. It was a gift, to be honest, to be able to have that.

“The team asked me if I want to do Monza, but they wanted to split free practice with another driver [Roberto Merhi]. I'm like, 'Guys, I barely drove the car - I drove it a bit in free practice, it rained in quali and I didn't do the race. If I do it, I do the whole weekend - or not at all.’ So I didn't [do it], but then they called me again for Abu Dhabi. But I was like, it was cool for one race, but then I was focusing on my job in endurance. And I knew even if I would do really well, there would be no outcome. I was 33 and I don't think I had a [sponsorship] package to bring to enter Formula 1. So, I left it at that.”

Although Lotterer is now currently very happy with his lot at Porsche, his ties to the manufacturer brings him to a crossroads; Porsche is due to embark on a return to endurance racing with its LMDh programme penned in for 2023, in which it will partner racing royalty Team Penske in both the World Endurance Championship and in IMSA. Surely Lotterer, a winner of three Le Mans 24 Hours and one of the world’s finest endurance racers, would be a certainty for one of the drives?

As it happens, it’s not the shoo-in that it appears. Lotterer wants to keep his Formula E career going – but trusts Porsche with whatever it has lined up for him in the future.

"The challenge where I am now is very demanding, and it's been really refreshing to have this new challenge after so many years of endurance racing,” Lotterer asserts. “This is a really nice thing, to be able to have a career to shift around and in combination with Porsche, especially as a works driver to go to different platforms and find new solutions.

“So you live the moment, you're busy with that and you're focused on that. In terms of missing [endurance racing] I mean sometimes, yeah; I look at the endurance races, I have passion for endurance of course, and Le Mans is a fantastic race. And yeah, there are rumours, obviously because Porsche is coming back to Le Mans. But either way, nothing's been decided. And if it's Formula E or Le Mans, I'm in good hands at Porsche.”

Whatever the next few years holds for Lotterer, there’s no prevailing signs that it won’t take him out of the racing arena. Even thinking about Lotterer’s claim to the longest single-seater career currently out there, to our mind there’s nobody able to challenge that ever-presence across the worldwide racing scene. Nor is there anyone else we’d back to keep that going for another few years.

With Porsche's Le Mans return on the horizon, what does the future hold for Lotterer?

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images