Formula E took its new GEN4 car up the hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, and the series posted onboard footage of Dan Ticktum at the wheel. It is a short clip, but the commentary lands the main point: this is a genuine handful, because the GEN4's performance is beyond anything Formula E has produced before. On a damp, narrow hillclimb the run becomes a study in traction, with the commentary crediting four-wheel drive for putting the power down cleanly out of the corners. The broadcast frames the GEN4 machines as a new and more technical chapter for the championship, one that rewards drivers who already understand the car's systems. It is a demonstration run rather than a timed shootout entry, so there is no lap time to read into here.
The reason a hillclimb demo is worth attention is the car itself. Per Formula E's GEN4 fact sheet, the new car is the world's first open-wheel racer with active all-wheel drive, working in every phase of the race rather than only in qualifying or attack mode as in the outgoing car. The same document lists a large jump in output, with power rising to 600 kW, quoted at 804 bhp, in attack mode, regeneration up to 700 kW, a top speed of 335 km/h, or 208 mph, and a roughly 43 percent increase in race energy to about 55 kWh. It also lists unlimited traction control and an anti-lock braking system, tools that make a four-wheel-drive open-wheeler manageable. For a sense of scale at this venue, Goodwood's own records show the outright hillclimb time, 39.081 seconds, is held by an electric car, the McMurtry Speirling, set in 2022, on a course listed at 1.86 km with nine turns. Electric machinery is not the novelty at Goodwood that it once was, which is exactly why a manufacturer-backed series bringing its next car here reads as a statement.
The clip is short on hard numbers and long on feel. According to the commentary, the benefit of all-wheel drive is visible in the acceleration, with every wheel driving and the car hooking up where a rear-drive machine might struggle on a slick surface. The commentators describe Ticktum working the throttle through the sequence of corners on the climb, and repeatedly stress how technical the car is to extract, the kind of machine that rewards a driver who already understands its systems. Formula E brought more than one car and driver to the event, so this Ticktum run sits alongside other GEN4 outings from the same showcase rather than standing as the only look. Formula E also markets the GEN4 on sustainability, describing it in the fact sheet as built with recycled and reusable materials in what it calls the first B Corp certified sport, which is part of the story the series is trying to tell with these public runs. What the footage does well is sell the onboard perspective, which is where the step up in pace is easiest to feel even without a stopwatch attached.
Bottom line: The headline on the GEN4 is not the Goodwood run, it is the hardware: a big power increase and active all-wheel drive in an open-wheel car, which is the kind of change that can reshape how these races are driven. A hillclimb demo is a teaser and should be read as one. The number that will actually matter is how the car races wheel to wheel when the 2026/27 season starts, not how it looks climbing a hill in the rain. Worth watching if you follow the series, but hold the verdict until it is racing.
Commentary on a third-party video. Figures and claims are as presented in the source and have not been independently verified. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will correct it.