Jens Marquardt: “Naturally, BMW Group’s experience when it comes to electrification is of great significance for our BMW i Motorsport project. At the start of the development process for the E drive in Formula E we were faced with the question: do we build up our own expertise at BMW Motorsport, or do we use the extensive BMW i experience in this area. We soon arrived at an answer. Naturally, it made sense to make use of the wealth of experience of our colleagues in production. We established an efficient development cycle, without duplicating roles unnecessarily. The experienced specialists from production look after the electric motor hardware and the inverter, meaning the entire high-voltage area. This includes the software that the inverter uses to control the E motor, as well as the materials used, such as for the rotor or stator. On the motorsport side, we handle matters such as the low-voltage control area, for example. We devise recuperation strategies, undertook the design and implementation of the entire rear axle structure and developed the cooling concept. Everything that each area can do best was intertwined with full transparency. The technology transfer between our BMW Motorsport engineers and BMW i colleagues works really well.”