{"id":540157,"date":"2026-07-23T10:39:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T10:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/540157\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T10:39:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T10:39:21","slug":"supercars-news-the-unlikely-parallels-between-supercars-and-formula-e","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/540157\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars news: The unlikely parallels between Supercars and Formula E"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a><\/p>\n

The Supercars Championship-leading squad recently signed German Alexander Lieschke, who has spent the last seven years working in Formula E.<\/p>\n

Supercars\u2019 loud and proud tin-top V8 formula is in many ways the antithesis of the all-electric open-wheel championship.<\/p>\n

But in a world where Supercars\u2019 control Gen3 platform has placed increasing emphasis on data analysis and simulation, the two may not be that far apart.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try to benchmark ourselves against other championships that are very similar to Supercars,\u201d CEO Brenton Grove recently explained on MotorRacing 360.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a few championships in the world that have a very similar formula of identical cars, limited testing, driver making a big difference\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cI always talk about execution because at the end of the day the team that can converge on the best balance earliest tends to win the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlex comes from a background of Formula E, which has a very similar philosophy in how the racing is to Supercars.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously they have energy management, we have a lot of tyre and fuel management. So bringing his experience [will benefit us].\u201d<\/p>\n

Lieschke joins Grove in a newly-created position as head of simulation and performance engineering.<\/p>\n

Manufacturers in categories such as Formula E utilise hugely sophisticated driver-in-the-loop (DIL) simulators through which car set-up changes can be virtually assessed ahead of \u2013 and during \u2013 race weekends.<\/p>\n

While such DIL engineering sims are still in their infancy in Australia, teams have long used simulation software for car setup analysis and lower-level physical simulators to train driving technique.<\/p>\n

Notably, Formula E events consist of a single practice session, qualifying and a race all on the same day.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same format Supercars teams faced during the last two events that featured Friday races, which puts a premium on having car setup largely sorted before even hitting the track.<\/p>\n

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Lieschke joins Grove Racing in a newly created position. Image: Supplied<\/p>\n

Lieschke\u2019s 13-year stint with Porsche also included time as part of its LMP1 sportscar program.<\/p>\n

Tickford Racing too recently recruited an engineer from Europe, Rafal Lewandowski, who worked on Toyota\u2019s LMP1 team.<\/p>\n

Lewandowski has been credited for helping turn Tickford\u2019s fortunes<\/a>, which included hitting the ground running in Darwin and Townsville to win both Friday races.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of euros a year on racing two cars,\u201d Grove continued of the manufacturer programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe resource pool [Lieschke\u2019s] had access to in terms of simulators and seven-post rigs and testing is far greater than what we\u2019re allowed to do in Supercars.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day that\u2019s retained knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to tap into that, bring his flair and ingenuity into what we\u2019re doing, and mix that with what our incredible team at Penrite Racing are already doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully we continue to keep developing like we\u2019ve done since we\u2019ve been able to get Riccardo into the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Italian Riccardo Corte joined Grove at the beginning of 2026 as race engineer to Kai Allen following a stint as a performance engineer with the Ferrari Formula 1 team.<\/p>\n

Lieschke is scheduled to start with Grove Racing in October.<\/p>\n

Grove adds German firepower to Supercars squad<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Supercars and Formula E appear worlds apart… Images: InSyde Media and Supplied The Supercars Championship-leading squad recently signed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[28872,111,139,69,9335,213],"class_list":["post-540157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-grove-racing","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-slot2","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}