The drivers might be front and centre when it comes to motorsport, but there are many other team members working hard behind the scenes to strive for success.
Season 12 of the Formula E World Championship is complete, with extensive preparations underway for the start of GEN4 in December.
The whole team, as ever, is working hard to strive for success, both on-track and at home between races.
But who are some of the key players making sure the Porsche Formula E Team is fighting fit?
The fourth profile in our Meet the Team series comes from Systems Engineer Anna Schwaiger.
Having started her career in endurance racing, she joined Porsche in 2017, starting on the RSR project.
A move to Formula E came in 2020, and after a false start with the Covid-affected Season 6, she joined the race team the following season.
Here’s what Anna had to say when we caught up with her in October:
How long have you been in your role?
“In this one particularly, since the end of 2019, but I started in the race team in Season 7.”
Give us a brief summary of your career so far.
“I studied Mechanical Engineering in Ingolstadt. That was a combined program at Audi where studying at the university was combined with an apprenticeship as a car mechanic. After that I directly started in Audi Sport doing DTM from 2015 to 16, and then I swapped to the 2016 LMP1 WEC series with Audi, until they quit the program. I finally found my way to Porsche at the beginning of 2017, starting there with the 911 RSR project, until the end of 2019, when I was asked after some restructuring of the whole motorsport department if I wanted to join Formula E. In the first year, Season 6, I was still in the ops room, but it was the COVID season that just lasted four events, and then was stopped for quite a while until the last six races were all done in one week in Berlin. And then from Season 7 onwards, I joined the race team at the track.”
What does a day at work look like to you?
“When I’m at a race event, it's most of the time quite early wake-ups, especially on the race days, because it's quite packed with practice, qualifying, and the race on one day. In the morning, we start powering on the car, checking all the sensors and control units are working as expected, conditioning the RESS (Rechargeable Energy Storage System) that it has the correct state of charge and temperatures and everything to run. That takes about one-and-a-half to two hours to get everything sorted for the first practice session. I share the job with Marcel, who is responsible for Nico’s car. I'm on Pascal's car, and I'm more on the low voltage side, so sensors, control units, all the cable stuff in the car, and Marcel is more focused on software and powertrain. On a normal day, when everything runs smoothly, then each of us works on one car, but in case we have an issue in one specific topic, then we can easily swap, so one can completely focus on solving the issue, while the other car is still able to do the session. After every session, we have to check the data and make sure everything's working fine, as the time is quite limited. On a normal race day, it's mainly checking data, and following the preparation procedures. But when you have a crash, like in Tokyo and have to rebuild the chassis, then it's getting quite busy, and we need to make sure that all the parts are prepared and the right parts go to the car and all the software versions are correct on the car, things like that. I'm also the team leader of the low voltage development department. I've been sharing that job with a colleague for the last two years, split between GEN3 and GEN4, because going to the racetrack and doing the development was too much for one person. Since October 1, I took over again. The team is working really well, so I mainly have to have an overview and sort the resources and the money topics. On the development side I have the responsibility for the steering wheel and tyre pressure control system, where I have to do systems checks, and if we get new parts, I need to test if they're working as expected. So it's a lot of organising things, looking for parts, checking if they are working correctly. It doesn't sound too much like engineering sometimes, but it's really important.”
What's your favourite thing about your job?
“That's a good one. I would say it's the excitement about every day. I never have it that one day starts the way the last one ended. So you never know what to expect, and you have to deal with that. And that's the exciting thing about it - I could never do something like a regular office job where every day looks the same. Every day is different.”
What was it that drew you to Formula E?
“From the day I started, I realised how close everything is, and that the competition is super strong. Now with the GEN4 car, we can develop a lot of things again on our own, because GEN3 was a lot of spec parts, which was the same for everyone. Now we can really push for cool new solutions. We found some really cool things to make the car lighter, because we never make it faster in 12V, you always can only mess it up.”
What is your favourite circuit on the calendar, and why?
“My favourite location for sure is Mexico. I love how the spectators interact, they really go crazy when you're there. You hear them screaming and they try to run into the garages if they can. I really love it. It feels wrong when all the grandstands are empty. But in Mexico, the whole stadium is full to the last seat, and it's really amazing.”
How does it feel to be a member of the Porsche Formula E team?
“It’s like family sometimes, because we spend so much time together, so we know basically everything about each other. Especially with the car crew, you need to have full trust. We also know about each other when you are not allowed to talk to someone before he has a second coffee in the morning! I really love to work with these guys, it’s an amazing team. For sure, we also have some of our struggles as well, but in the big picture, everyone is working together really well. Next year we will have some changes in the engineering group, so we’ll need to find the new structure again - I’m quite sure it will work out.”
What's your favourite memory from your time at Porsche?
“Winning the world championship twice now - that’s for sure far up in the list. But also some times like when we had to rebuild cars overnight because we had a crash and things like that. I think the weirdest one was in Rome in Season 9. There was a huge crash, and the whole paddock was still at the track long after the race because there were five or six cars completely destroyed. And the next morning, every car was back on the grid, and it was like this Formula E family thing. You have so many spec parts, we started to share things with other teams, going to Jaguar and asking “do you still have drive shafts? Yes, can we borrow your nose, whatever.” So the whole paddock worked together to get everything back working for the next day. That was a special one. But yeah, for sure, the positive things are definitely the championship wins in 2024 and this year.”
Tell us an interesting fact that we might not know about you.
“I sew basically all my clothes myself, I rarely buy anything - most things I make myself. I don't own any sweatpants. I love rock and roll and dancing, from 1930s swing music to early 1960s rock and roll, so it's quite a wide range. I think that's very different from what you see when I’m at the track.”
