A personal friend of Formula E CEO Alejandro Agag, Servià has been a fully-paid up fan of Formula E since its inception, and played an important behind-the-scenes role in pitching the project to Penske. He takes up the story:
“When I knew about the championship being formed, I offered myself to help get in touch with US teams and US drivers and as I was explaining what it was about I found myself becoming really excited about it, almost like it was my thing!” Servià laughs.
“I saw the future in the concept, in trying to connect new generations with new technology and racing downtown. In IndyCar we always did a lot of street races and it was always a success because you’re basically bringing the race to the people. And with these types of cars being electric vehicles you have fewer impediments and more cities that want to support it because they want to jump on the green bandwagon, so I saw it as a win-win.
“I also like the fact that the championship decided to go with a set number of teams. They were only going to have ten franchises, so if you have new manufacturers who see the value in the championship and want to jump in, they cannot just start their own team; they have to buy into the existing franchises, which means for once there is value in owning a team. In IndyCar or NASCAR, the value is only the sponsor you have for that year, the next year it can all change.”
And the rest, as they say, was history.