Luca Filippi has been dropped by the NIO Formula E team ahead of the 2018/19 season, the team has confirmed.
Filippi made his Formula E debut in Hong Kong at the beginning of last season alongside Oliver Turvey. However he struggled to get to grips with the series and several poor results, scoring just one point across the season.
He was briefly replaced by the team’s reserve driver Ma Qing Hua in Paris, who also stepping in for Turvey during the finale in New York after the Brit injured his hand.
Despite it being understood that NIO would have an unchanged line-up for season five, and Filippi believed to have carried out the majority of the team’s private testing on its 004 Gen2 car, the Italian will not be returning for another year.
“Firstly I would like to take this opportunity to thank Luca for his commitment to the role of race driver with the NIO Formula E Team, something that he undertook with immense dedication and pride, in what proved to be the most competitive season in the championship’s history,” said team principal Gerry Hughes.
“Whilst it was a challenging inaugural season for Luca, he remained focused and energised and this has certainly helped the team with the initial development of the NIO 004 car over the summer months, whilst Oliver has continued to recover from his hand injury sustained in the penultimate race of season four in New York.
“However, with season five firmly in our sights and having bold ambitions as NIO’s racing operation, we have decided to make changes to our race driver line-up and as a result we have to say goodbye and good luck to Luca.”
The team stated it will be making an announcement regarding its driver line-up in due course, with the new car to be launched in London on October 8.
