Formula E championship

[j2 lot]

I am surprised that Formula E seems to be going mostly unnoticed. I became aware of it a couple of months ago when we we looking to get a car to display at work and Formula E was a suggested option, it never happened but it peaked my interest as to what it was.

The championship starts next week in Bejing and runs through the winter until June next year -all 10 races are street circuits and the last round in June is in London.
20 car grid, hour long races, commentator is Dario Franchitti. The practice, qualifying and race all happen in one day.
There are a lot of big names involved including: Virgin Racing, Trulli, , Andretti , Audi, Venturi and driver line up includes Jarno Trulli, Nicolas Prost, Luca Di Grassi, Nelson Piquet, Nick Heidfeld, Karun Chandok, Bruno Senna,Sam Bird, Algesuari, Sarazin, and Buemi.
The preview programme was on last weekend and the first race is live on ITV4 on Saturday.
The downside is that there is a forced pit stop in each race - when the drivers swap to identical fully charged second cars and the really strange contrived bit is there is a 'fan boost' where viewers can vote to give drivers extra power
http://www.fiaformulae.com/en.aspx

[Shug]

The Social media fan boost stuff killed it stone dead for me - the concept was already way too contrived.

It's an attempt to make motorsport relevant to the Twitter generation - maybe it'll work, maybe not, but it's convinced me that it's really not for the likes of me...

Shame.

[Corranga]

I've stuck a season record on for it, not read up on the fan boost, but it sounds a tad silly, and didn't realise there was a car swap - so whilst F1 is striving for money saving, Formula E - the theoretically green formula needs to transport presumably nearly twice as much stuff around in the trucks and planes that are equally the worst environmental factor in F1 :/

Are all of the races on a Saturday?!

[j2 lot]

All Saturdays and full event done in a day.
I think there are enough big names and respected racers involved that its worth giving it a chance . I fear that they are trying too hard to make it a spectacle and it is a step too far with viewers voting but I'll be giving it a chance because we need an alternative to F1 and something to make Bernie work for his money, fingers crossed.

[flyingscot68]

Fan Boost? Really??
We're heading towards Death Race or Rollerball type sports by the sounds of it.
Does Arnie drive?

All joking aside, I think the electric race car and bike is something that'll be the norm in years to come. Think I'll record this for a wee look.


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[Shug]

My main issue with it isn't so much the fan boost stuff (although that was a final nail) but that it's not a development formula. For this to be relevant to mainstream electric cars, the best way would be to devise a formula of energy allowance and chassis regs, then have people design and create racers to fit. Sadly, the impetus isn't there for this to happen, so it'd largely be a few one-man-band style garagistes, which I think would be cool - but it's not what the FIA want - they want a shiny shop window for electric racing.

So what we have here is a stock open wheel car with no development - it's basically a marketing exercise. Fine, but it's not moving the game on any. Motorsport is the ideal way to push on technology, but that's not an option with this formula.

[Shug]

Actually, if the FIA had been serious about electric racing, there would have been regulations for grass-roots racing in place for the past decade, letting the teams and championships mature and develop on a national scale. Then the FIA could launch a world championship taking these coordinated national championships and feeding the best into a greater championship.

But they realise they've almost missed the boat and with the way road cars are headed, they were looking increasingly behind the times - so panic! Let's make up a fait accomplis in a single year which makes it look like we're serious about electric motorsport when there's been almost zero desire inside motorsport (and therefore the FIA) until now.

FWIW - I dread the day we are forced electric, but I dread it more if we've not spent time and money developing the technology the best we can - and for cars, that's motorsport...

[j2 lot]

The preview programme referenced the development of teams own cars and their use next year, the 'stock' car is for year 1 as far as I can tell.
I do agree with you though it is a knee jerk reaction from the FIA to go green but the number and level of respected drivers and contributors bodes well even if the actual concept is contrived.

[Shug]

The preview programme referenced the development of teams own cars and their use next year, the 'stock' car is for year 1 as far as I can tell.

In which case it might interest me more from year two... Being honest, I saw a few previews in print going through the stock car and social media stuff and largely switched off. So, bad form on my part, but I'll look on with interest if it does start to gain a following and subsequently turn into a proper development formula...

[BiggestNizzy]

I hated the fan boost idea, and was massivly disapointed to hear they change cars half way.

[duggiesmith]

I've been keeping an eye on this and I think it sounds promising, particularly if teams get to develop their cars from year 2.
Not sure about the fan boost though. A bit of a gimmick. If it is really controlled by the fans, I can't see Piquet getting much benefit from it

[DDtB]

I hated the fan boost idea, and was massivly disapointed to hear they change cars half way.

Thought I read somewhere that the batteries don't last a full race, so that's why they had to change half way through.

Did I imagine that?

[Dominic]

I hated the fan boost idea, and was massivly disapointed to hear they change cars half way.

Thought I read somewhere that the batteries don't last a full race, so that's why they had to change half way through.

Did I imagine that?

That what I had read too. A 12 hour pit stop to refuel (re-charge) was thought to be potentially a bit dull during a race, so a second car was the answer. Makes a mockery of the usability and marketing for electric cars IMHO.

[C7Steve]

Why not make the race length a distance that is about 90-95% of a charged battery? Fan boost is a terrible idea

Steve.

[tut]

Will make a change from running out of fuel, running out of electricity.

tut