Interview with Eugenio Franzetti, Director of DS Performance – Part 1

Read also: Interview with Eugenio Franzetti, Director of DS Performance – Part 2

Bonjour Eugenio.

It has been one year since you have been leading DS Performance. What assessment do you make of this first year?

The assessment is very positive from both a professional and personal standpoint. Professionally, because it is a dream for me to work in motorsport. I have been passionate about it since childhood. I first worked in communication at Peugeot, in Italy and then internationally. I then became sales director at Citroën, and later, brand director for DS in Italy. An experience in motorsport was therefore a great opportunity as it combined my passion with my profession.

Professionally, I have been fortunate enough to witness motorsports from the inside. It is different from what one can see from the outside. There is the technical side, the communication side, and the commercial side. These three aspects combined define, in my opinion, the world of motorsports.

From a personal point of view, having this opportunity to learn more, after having worked in communication, marketing, and sales, was very important to me. I also had the chance and opportunity to visit countries I had never been to before and to have new experiences.

You were Director of DS Automobiles in Italy before taking over DS Performance. How do you manage a motor racing team compared to a commercial team?

It’s always about competition. If you win, others lose. I think there are really important links between commerce and competition. Market share, if you gain it, someone else will lose it. It’s the same thing in motorsports.

The competitive spirit of a sales team is the same as in a motorsport team. You are constantly looking for solutions to improve your performance, step by step, and once you find them, you will enhance your performance. And when you have improved your performance, someone else will lose out.

In business, we talk about market share, orders, order intake, and in motorsport, it’s more or less the same. We work with performance indicators, we have monthly goals, and we try to improve them to achieve the best possible result. We work towards objectives, just like in business, and like engineers do with the car’s performance.

What lessons did you learn from the tests that took place in Valencia in October, in preparation for the new season?

This year, the Valencia tests took place very early. They were held during the last week of October while the [season 10 is set to start in mid-January](/formule-e/actualite/32437-la-formule-e-devoile-calendrier-definitif-saison-10.html). We left with a list of things to check and managed to perform the tests we wanted.

Between season 9 and season 10, the homologation of the car is the same so we cannot change the hardware. The hardware includes the power unit (engine, inverter, and gearbox). We cannot work on it but we can work on the software. The software in Formula E is very important because it manages the relationship between the power unit and the battery.

It is also thanks to the software that we will manage the braking and therefore the energy recovery during braking. We worked a lot during the summer to arrive in Valence with solutions aiming to improve the performance of the car thanks to the software.

The tests were a bit complicated because we had less time than expected to work (1). It is not useful to go fast to Valence just to go to Valence. It’s not a race, it’s a test. So, we worked on a starting configuration for the Mexico and Diriyah races, the first two events of the season.

DS Penske finished 5th in the team championship during season 9. What are your goals for the new season?

The objective is clear, it’s to do better than season 9. We are the brand that has gained the most in Formula E. Our ambition is to be as successful as possible, to win races, to win championships. It’s normal with the track record we have.

We experienced some magnificent moments during season 9; a victory in Hyderabad, a second place in Cape Town, a third place in Berlin, and a pole position in Sao Paulo. Between February and May, we were the fastest or among the fastest. We also encountered some difficult moments. At the beginning of the year, it took us more time than others to understand how to be successful with the new car.

The level of Formula E in season 9 was very high. The Porsche and Jaguar power units, in particular, were very impressive. I expect to see them competitive again. Our goal, therefore, is to do better and to at least reach the podium.

For Season 10, we understood where to work on improving the car’s performance, braking, regeneration, and software. We have a highly skilled team with talented engineers and mechanics. Our partnership with Penske is working very well. The experience of Penske combined with DS Performance’s expertise in power unit production is yielding very positive results.

Your two drivers, Jean-Eric Vergne and Stoffel Vandoorne, are committed to WEC with Peugeot. Isn’t there a risk that their attention will be more focused on one competition at the expense of the other?

These are professional drivers, so the more races they do, the happier they are. This dual commitment increases the already positive relationship with Stellantis Motorsport (2) and the positive relationship between our two drivers. They work very well together and are good friends.

Having two drivers who have a very good relationship and collaborate well together is very useful for the development of the car. They have slightly different approaches, so they give us a more complete, richer vision of what needs to be done on the car.

There is no problem with work overload. It’s the life of a pilot. In between races, there’s also the simulator, car development, and testing. They’re used to spending the year on the track. For a pilot, the more they drive, the better it is.

(1) The duration of the Valence tests has been reduced due to a fire that occurred in a garage on the first day.

(2) DS Automobiles and Peugeot both belong to the Stellantis automotive group.