One of the most iconic names in racing is set to make a return this year, by establishing a team in the Formula E Championship.
The U.K.’s Lola Cars announced on Thursday that it will partner with Yamaha to form the new team Lola Yamaha in time for Season 11 of Formula E, which is expected to start later this year. The provisional calendar won’t be published until June.
It will take over the current ABT Cupra team, with Formula E veteran Mark Preston serving as team principal. He’s currently the head of rival team Techeetah. Preston was also founder of the former Super Aguri Formula 1 team and prior to that a senior designer at the McLaren F1 team, where he worked alongside Adrian Newey and Mike Coughlan.
Lola was founded in 1958 by legendary British race car designer Eric Broadley. The company over the years has built cars for F1, Formula 5000, IndyCar, and the Canadian-American Challenge Cup (Can-Am), among other series, and together with various teams racing Lolas has racked up over 500 championship titles, according to the company. Most notably, the Lola Mk6 also served as the basis for the Ford GT40.
Lola Yamaha Gen 3 Formula E race car
The original Lola’s run came to an end in 2012, after the company went bankrupt. Its assets eventually ended up with investor Till Bechtolsheimer in 2022, who aimed to revive the company and its racing career. He’s also establishing a new headquarters in Silverstone, where several F1 teams are also located.
Bechtolsheimer said the focus of Lola’s involvement in Formula E will be the development of electric vehicle technology for motorsports applications, particularly the 469-hp electric powertrain used by the current Gen3 race car common to all Formula E teams.
In a statement, Bechtolsheimer said Lola sees the highly efficient powertrain as a “cornerstone technology with exciting applications across many forms of topflight international motorsports in the coming years.”
In other Formula E news, Nissan on Thursday became the first team to commit to the next-generation Gen4 race car which will be introduced later this decade. Performance targets for the new car include a power output of 804 hp and regeneration capacity up to 938 hp.