The 24-year-old Briton will return for his third season in the all-electric championship, having spent the previous two campaigns with NIO 333, which has been rebranded as Electric Racing Technologies (ERT) for 2024.
Ticktum finished in the points seven times last year, three of those on the bounce in the final races, but he believes even reaching the points this term will be difficult after he and team-mate Sergio Sette Camara struggled for pace in pre-season testing.
“It’s nice to have some racing to do [after six months since the last race in London], but I’ll cut to it: it’s going to be a hard year,” Ticktum told Motorsport.com.
“I’ve just got to try and smile and get through this year. I think the year after is going to start to get more positive for the team. I’m just going to try and do the best I can.”
He added: “I think we’re happy to take a bit more risk this year in races where potentially we can score a few points.
“I don’t want to sound defeatist, but we’ve run simulations, we know where we are, and I think last year we really did the best we could, and I think other people weren’t quite in their window as much as maybe we were.
“I think other teams will have improved, but I think it’s still feasible to beat the Mahindras and have the occasional race where we can score some points.
“As we know, it’s quite a chaotic and unpredictable championship, and hopefully, we’ve still got a good one-lap pace.”
With many aspects of the Gen3 cars homologated for the upcoming campaign, which begins tomorrow with the Mexico City E-Prix, Ticktum believes there is little chance for ERT to make ground this year.
Instead, the focus will be on developing the car for next year when a Gen3.5 machine is set to be introduced.
“It’s because we can’t change anything with the powertrain, so we’re going to be in a very similar position to last year, just struggles with efficiency,” said Ticktum.
He added: “To build a good platform for when we’ve got a more efficient powertrain [is this season’s goal].
“I think this year is to try and iron out as many creases as we can, to have a relatively stable but good season, try and keep morale as high as we can to work towards the upcoming seasons.”
