When Porsche dropped its second factory team bombshell into the Formula E paddock last November, it was clear it caught not only its rivals by surprise but Formula E and the FIA too.
The private, shocked responses of its competitors appeared pure and genuine. They had not so much as considered the model change of going from having two customer teams to two full-factory ones, or so they said.
When it occurred, the aftershock took effect and from it came questions, and plenty of them. As Gen4 was, and to a great extent still is, embryonic, teams want answers to what are now long-held questions as to the ongoing equity and ultimately the shifting governance within it.
The FIA and Formula E have the unenviable job of looking at what series CEO Jeff Dodds describes as a situation "where a team might be able to take advantage of the economies of scale that come from having two teams, but not take advantage in a way that's going to impact them positively on the track".
That's a delicate balance to strike. Add into it the delicate situation of competitive rival teams looking at how they could be disadvantaged, and you have a hotbed of innuendo and unease that can create damaging friction to what, in Formula E lingo, is the 'ecosystem'.
Presently, the FIA is having to look at giving teams that Porsche will be racing against certain comforts and the clarity that regulations will be air-tight when it comes to sporting, technical and financial governance.
"That means they won't be able to exploit anything from having two teams from a sporting advantage point of view," Dodds told The Race recently.
"I think [the FIA have] still got a little bit of work to do, but I think they've come a long way in that process. Does that mean at the end of it that certain teams or drivers won't always find a theory as to how they've [Porsche] done better because of something to do with it? Of course they will. And that's the nature of competitive sport."
Dodds is correct in this analysis. Several teams have outlined to The Race recently their growing concerns around the governance of Formula E in Gen4 and specific details within it that could centre around a team doubling its works presence. The discussion around them is going on right now.
"It's a work in progress, is the best way to describe it," Jaguar's team principal, Ian James told The Race.
"There's been some good discussion in the recent weeks with both the FIA, the manufacturers and the teams just to make sure that however things are structured going into next season, that we protect the fact that it should be a level playing field for all involved.
"The financial and sporting is where we just need to put our focus. The FIA is already working on making sure that we've got measures in place to make that equity within the championship."
Cost efficiencies within the Formula E financial platform are clear and will be exploited (with the regulations) because that is part and parcel of modern-day motorsport.
"From a bang for the buck perspective, in terms of running two teams, I don't think they should be penalised in taking those opportunities," added James.
"If ultimately it's more cost-effective to run those two teams, I'm sure, part of the business case that's behind the decision to come in and buy that second franchise.
"Where we've got to make sure that the regulation is adapted where necessary for this particular situation is the fact that they shouldn't have any cost cap advantage. So, at the end of the day, those cost efficiencies need to be adjusted for within the cost gap.
"So again, we get back to a position of a level playing field. But those discussions are ongoing, and from what I've seen so far, they're moving in a good direction."
Porsche's stance is straightforward on the whole topic. It saw an opportunity and went for it. Porsche completed everything it could within the framework of the regulations and the make-up of the all-electric world championship.
That it was a surprise to anyone was itself a surprise to Porsche.
Anyone who has studied how Porsche operates in other forms of motorsport with affiliate teams, third cars entered at the Le Mans 24 Hours, and so on, was not overly startled by the move.
"We have the FIA there, who will monitor everything carefully," Porsche's Florian Modlinger told The Race bluntly last month when asked what he and Porsche made of competitors' concerns.
"We also see a set-up in F1 [Red Bull's two teams] which is not far away, which works for many years and is for me a case of precedence. They [competitors] should not be worried."
Yet they still are. And it's fair to say Red Bull's double presence in Formula 1 has been pretty controversial with rivals over the decades too, so maybe isn't the most reassuring example to offer.
Both the FIA and Formula E Operations now have a responsibility to uphold the equity of its competition to the standards expected. This new twist presented by Porsche may stress-test those more heading into Gen4 now.
"I would say this, you could name the move as a logical next step," Thomas Laudenbach, who oversees all of Porsche's motorsport activities, told The Race.
"So therefore, and I'm pretty sure that many of the team principals here and owners here were thinking about such a step. We were probably the first ones to execute.
"You know how we do Formula E: we do it 100% or we don't do it [at all].
"It took quite some years to bring us somewhere in the front pack. Hopefully now we can stay in the front pack, but we always try to do it fully committed."
Perhaps the bigger question right now in Formula E is what the championship wants to be. Does it want a more domineering manufacturer championship, which is both lucrative and ultra-competitive, or can it still find a suitable way for customer and independent teams?
Jaguar runner Envision was the last customer team to win a title in 2023 and since then, it has won just one race (Sebastien Buemi in Monaco in 2025). Of Porsche's current customer teams, Andretti has won one race in two years (Jake Dennis in Sao Paulo in 2025), and Cupra Kiro has one with Dan Ticktum's first win in Jakarta last June.
Is this the last fight against the dying of the light for customer teams in Formula E, or will the FIA and Formula E reset the equilibrium, something which feels as though it is now somewhat overdue?
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