Overt tactics and orchestrated positional changes between manufacturers and their customer teams could become a thing of the past in Formula E, as the FIA looks to regulate the practice much more heavily in the Gen4 era.

The Race can reveal that the FIA has recently notified competitors at a recent sporting working group that it is working to ensure that fixed orders between manufacturers and customers will be outlawed.

The FIA's championship manager for Formula E, Pablo Martino, told The Race that if some manufacturers try to stage-manage racing positions via orders to drivers the governing body would "try to find a way to revert that and put it back into what is considered a fair playground for all competitors".

"We are reinforcing in the sporting regs next year that the team orders with an objective to alter significantly a result or the way of how a race is developed between competitors is forbidden," added Martino.

Measures to tackle such tactics are believed to have becoming a more pressing matter after Porsche announced last autumn that it would introduce a second factory team to its Formula E set-up for Gen4.

This has been widely seen by Porsche's competitors as a move to a model of racing whereby it could manage its championship programmes via team orders between its two-tiered factory attack and what is believed to be one customer for Gen4. That customer is set to be Cupra Kiro after terms are believed to have recently been agreed.

Presently, although neither Porsche nor Kiro will comment on specific racing directives, it is widely believed that a strategy is in place for Kiro drivers in particular to be subservient to an extent for the factory Porsche cars, should they be asked.

Additionally, Pascal Wehrlein is known to have an element of racing protection from his team-mate Nico Mueller in certain conditions during races. This was noticeable at the Madrid E-Prix in March when Mueller blocked Mitch Evans while the Jaguar driver was on the higher 350kW power, which allowed Wehrlein to pull a temporary gap on Evans (who ultimately beat Wehrlein to second) in the closing stages of the race.

Martino said there would also be a wider-ranging review "on the technical side, on financial regulation side, on the sporting side of what risk would be associated with this kind of team's association or between competitors' associations".

He added: "We have had a think on some steps we can put forward or we can move forward in our different regulations in order to avoid having any unfair advantage. Because for us it's key to keep the current system of Formula E, which we believe works really well, where a customer team, being a customer of a manufacturer, can be as competitive as a works team and win championships."

One team that has occasionally been in the maelstrom of a manufacturer-customer sporting dynamic is Andretti. It has been a Porsche customer since the start of the Gen3 era and tasted success in the first year of that partnership, with Jake Dennis winning the 2023 drivers' title in a Porsche 99X Electric.

However, a sometimes fractious relationship with its car provider was a feature of that season - and of some races since - including several incidents between Dennis and factory Porsche driver Wehrlein. Andretti is known to have pushed back significantly on some requests for more pliability from Porsche too.

Speaking to The Race in Berlin last week, Andretti team principal Roger Griffiths said that there was some apprehension about the Porsche model of having two factory cars as well as a customer and how a degree of management in those entries could manifest itself in races.

"We all have concerns about team orders if you like, whether it's inter-team or whether it's across teams, particularly when you've got a manufacturer supplying more than one entity," said Griffiths.

"We certainly don't want to see actions on track which artificially affect the outcome of a race. Some of the places we race are quite narrow and it wouldn't take too much for a multi-car manufacturer team to become a roadblock and allow one driver to get away and everybody else be held up.

"I'm hoping that it's all going to come to nothing and everybody will race sensibly. But we've certainly seen in other championships this orchestration of pre-deciding who's going to be the race winner on a particular weekend.

"We certainly don't want the antics that we saw perhaps in DTM to coming across into Formula E. We hope we can be a case of may the best person win."

Kiro is also suspected to have had directives from Porsche on occasion, something that it appears to have been reasonably confident of absorbing.

That team's ultimate sporting decision maker, Russell O'Hagan, told The Race he thought it was something of a non-topic and that there was a "natural inclination when those things come up that it becomes a source of concern".

"But I've genuinely not seen it," added O'Hagain.

"It's not particularly high on our radar of areas. At the end of the day, you also have lots of racing drivers out there and I think all that comes with that kind of customer and supplier relationship is just almost another set of team-mates where you just have to be respectful.

"The last thing you want to do is take each other off. But I think outside of that, it's not really a big issue or one that we've seen or we will see."

The criteria the FIA will work from

The FIA already handles matters of team orders and orchestration of races largely through Appendix M of the International Sporting Code. The relevant articles range from conflicts of interest to manipulation of competitions and even betting.

One element of the Appendix, under article 12, detailing the manipulation of competitions, defines this as: "An arrangement, act or intentional omission aimed at improperly altering the result or running of a competition in order to remove all or part of the unpredictable nature of said competition, aiming to obtain an undue advantage for oneself or others, including sporting advantage."

The FIA also has a little known 'FIA ethics and compliance hotline' which is described as "an online portal that is accessible to anybody wanting to report in a confidential manner concerns of misconduct raised in good faith".

This part of the Appendix details insider information as: "Any information relating to a competition possessed by a person who was able to obtain it only because of their position vis-a-vis motorsport or a competition, unless this information has already been published or is publicly known, is easily accessible to an interested public or has been divulged in accordance with the regulations governing the relevant competition."

Martino said of the FIA's recent reiteration of the rules: "Since we have presented these ideas, the teams have been quite happy.

"Of course, they want to see this applied if it ever comes to it. But I don't think it's going to be much different to what it is today, but we are just trying to clarify how we will proceed in case of something not fair."

The question of how instances of orchestration can be effectively policed is one area of concern for the FIA though, as examples in other championships have occurred via codewords or phrases used by teams.

Perhaps the most famous of these was the "Fernando is faster than you" message to Felipe Massa at the 2010 German Grand Prix at Hockenheim, which was delivered by Massa's engineer, Rob Smedley, to ensure Ferrari Formula 1 team-mate Fernando Alonso could move into the lead of the race seamlessly.

On that occasion, an investigation led to a $100,000 fine for Ferrari and ironically it ultimately led to a lifting of the team order ban in F1.