Edoardo Mortara must have been one of the most popular winners in Formula E history when he finally got his hands on the trophy in Hong Kong. It was a result that put him fourth in the championship, two points off the lead. Those new to the sport may have been thinking that Felipe Massa, a year out of Formula One, would be the one pulling up trees with Venturi, but it’s been his unassuming Swiss-Italian team-mate who has made a real splash.

The thing is, nobody should be surprised. We’re talking about the man who has won ten races around the Macau street circuit in various machinery, something no other driver has ever managed. This is the man who could, perhaps should, have won the 2016 DTM title for Audi. The talent has never been in doubt, neither has the application, nor the intelligence.

When Mortara knows he has a team and a car that absolutely suits him, there are few faster around tight, constrictive circuits. This, by coincidence, is exactly what Formula E’s calendar mostly consists of. Even so, it looked in the first three races like it would be a season of struggle for Venturi, never previously a regular frontrunner in Formula E. Indeed, in spite of entering in season one with much-publicised investment from Leonardo di Caprio, Venturi had not won a race coming into season five.

It looked like perhaps too much was new at the team. After Susie Wolff and husband Toto had bought shares in Venturi, Susie was installed as team principal — her first such gig, after a long and sometimes promising career as a driver (side note: don’t let anyone tell you Susie Wolff owes her career to her husband. She was a very useful Formula Renault and Formula 3 driver, and if not in two year-old machinery, could have done really well in the DTM. Did Toto’s connections help later? Undoubtedly — but that’s life, and she always had the talent as a racing driver).

Venturi team principal Susie Wolff, right (photo: FIA Formula E)

Coming into Formula E with a new team, or new management, is hard — ask HWA Racelab — and having not run a pit garage before, the learning curve is far steeper. It’s not the team principal’s job to make all the calls for the drivers and their engineers — responsibilities in a top-level racing team are clearly delineated — but if the person at the top is new, sometimes messages can get muddled.

There was a moment in Marrakesh when Massa had an issue in practice, and had to ask the pit more than once if he should stop on track or attempt to move the car. Again, there is no blame on any one person for that; the technical issue was an inevitable teething problem with the new car-power-unit package, and the call got resolved in due course. It just all seemed a bit symptomatic of a team, with a new car, a driver unused to Formula E, and new management, after relatively limited testing relative to, say, F1, learning as it went along.

By Santiago, though, one half of the Venturi garage was cooking. Mortara took a totally deserved fourth place. Massa, who had been wedged against the wall on the pit straight by Oliver Rowland, was left frustrated, but was still adapting to his new environment and its very different driving styles and standards. It was fitting in the circumstances that the Swiss took Venturi’s first points of the season.

It was as though this result galvanised the whole team. Venturi, not short of investment, is still not a team that has BMW or Audi’s level of resources. The edge, when it comes, will come from gains they can find in their own power unit (which HWA also use), but also from the men on track.

Mortara fits the model of a Venturi driver, since the failed Jacques Villeneuve experiment was abandoned. Unshowy, low-profile, and quick, he made a contrast going into season five with Massa, who was being touted as a new face of the series. When Venturi found the latent pace in their car, it was the more experienced Formula E driver who was on hand to take advantage.