Swiss luxury watchmaker TAG Heuer and quintessential German sports car maker Porsche have entered into a long-term agreement for their Formula E campaign. The Porsche works entry into the ABB FIA Formula E Championship 2019/2020 will be under the name of TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team.
Both brands have a long history in motorsport, including forays into the pinnacle of car racing—Formula 1—with the legendary McLaren-TAG Porsche driven by multiple world champions Niki Lauda and Alain Prost in the mid-80s. Building on previous successes, Porsche and TAG Heuer are now accelerating toward new frontiers with their engagement in Formula E, the world’s first electric street racing series, which starts its sixth season this November. The season runs 14 races over 12 cities in four continents. Drivers Neel Jani and Andre Lotterer will be piloting the two TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E racecars.
This ambition, this Avant-Garde vision, as well as this passion for motorsport, are part of the set of values shared by TAG Heuer and Porsche. This new partnership in Formula E will reap the benefits of combining expertise across various areas to push both companies to new dimensions in terms of technology, accuracy and connectivity.
TAG Heuer has been synonymous with motorsport for a long time and is also one of the founding partners of the ABB FIA Formula E Championship, which continues to gain momentum and fans all over the world.
The TAG Heuer Porsche 99X Electric Formula E car
Wearing traditional Porsche motorsport colors, the car’s livery contains the Porsche emblem, which is visible around the Halo protection system.
Typical of current and past Porsche road and racing cars, the naming format is three digits that begin with ‘9,’ with the number used twice to emphasize the importance of the Formula E project for Porsche. The ‘X,’ however, stands for a forward-looking approach and prototype racing, with the TAG Heuer Porsche 99X Electric serving as a development platform for future fully electric production models. The Formula E racer is revealed ahead of the all-electric Taycan’s road debut later this year.
“Today sees the Porsche 99X Electric join the list of historic Porsche motorsport cars,” says Pascal Zurlinden, Director Factory Motorsport.
“The naming and the design give the car its initial character and bring it to life. It is a special day for everyone who has put a lot of work into the Porsche Formula E project in recent months.”
Sporting a ‘Porsche E-Performance Powertrain,’ developed with Porsche’s victorious experience in hybrid endurance racing, the 99X Electric joins the rest of the grid with a standardized chassis and battery.
“In hindsight, we laid the foundations for Porsche’s future involvement in Formula E during the LMP1 project,” said Malte Huneke, Technical Project Leader Formula E. “We used the insights gained during that time in the development of the Porsche Formula E powertrain. We focused on building a highly effective powertrain with the highest level of efficiency.”
Using the lessons learned from the racetrack, the same 800-volt technology used in its 99X also features in the series production of the first fully electric Porsche sports car, the Taycan.
The TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team and the 99X Electric will make its first official appearance in mid-October 2019 at the Formula E test at Valencia, Spain. The first Formula E race for season 6 will be held in Ad Diriyah in November.
