Track action at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Spain has been curtailed since Tuesday afternoon when a battery exploded in the garage of battery supplier WAE (formerly known as Williams Advanced Engineering).
While most of the damage was confined to that pitbox, the neighbouring Mahindra squad were also impacted by the blaze.
As well as having to move garages, the team confirmed that damage occurred to its IT infrastructure, engineering stations and to both race cars.
It has meant that the team will run only one car in this afternoon’s session, which is scheduled to take place between 2:00pm and 6:30pm local time on Thursday following an investigation by the FIA and WAE as to the cause of the incident.
It means that Edoardo Mortara will be the team’s only runner this afternoon, with a decision set to be made overnight on who will conduct driving duties during Friday’s session when again only one will run.
Mahindra Racing CEO Frederic Bertrand said: “First of all, I would like to extend my thanks to the Incident Response Team. Although we have sustained extensive damage to our trackside operations, without a doubt their quick actions helped to avoid a much larger incident.
“I would also like to express my gratitude to the FIA, Formula E and to each and every single one of our competitors. The support for Mahindra Racing at this difficult time has been unanimous and is a clear indication to me that we exist and compete as one family within the paddock.
“I am extremely proud of everyone at the Mahindra Racing team. It has taken a huge amount of time, effort, and dedication to get us to a position where we can resume testing with a single car in Valencia this week. Although this comes with some obvious sporting disadvantages, we are all looking forward to resuming our programme.”
Ex-AlphaTauri Formula 1 driver de Vries is making his return to Formula E having won the all-electric championship in 2020-21 with Mercedes.
His first on-track drive with Mahindra came on Tuesday morning prior to the fire, when he finished last in the opening three-hour session, nearly two seconds behind pacesetter Mitch Evans.
