technologies related to electric energy to be introduced within the next 3-4 years.
The first ever ePrix taking place in front of the Birds’ Next in Beijing couldn’t have been a better disply of pure racing. The drivers’ lined-up consisted of 15 former or current drivers / reserve drivers from F1 and others from renowned categories; producing a brilliant show on the street circuit. For sure the reunion of the three legendary names -‘Senna’, ‘Prost’ and ‘Piquet’- had to raise an awful lot of attention from both the media and the public.
When Nicolas Prost, the son of Alain Prost, set the provisional pole position on early Saturday, everyone in the media centre expected Bruno Senna, the nephew of Ayrton Senna, to join in the first row to recap the greatest battle in the 80s. Unfortunately the Brazilian failed to make it because of technical issue’s in his Mahindra.
Formula E is - relatively speaking – slow – with an average pace around only 180km/h in the race whilst the sound made by electric motor generator is not as charming as by internal combustion engine. The race in Beijing, however, still remained fierce thanks to high calibre driving, which witnessed Lucas di Grassi (the former F1 driver for Virgin Racing in 2010) became the first winner of FE after Nicolas Prost and Nick Heldfield (the well-known former German F1 driver) crashed to each other at the last corner on the last lap.
As a consequence, the contact caused a dispute between the two, who are teammate racing at Le Mans 24 Hours, before the junior Prost was handed a ten-place grid penalty at the next race for causing the collision by the steward.
Ho-Pin Tung (the former F1 reserve driver for Renault and Lotus between 2009 and 2010), who races for Team China in the championship, was upset after careening his car to the wall in the final practice when he was the third fastest and just 0.3 seconds off the frontrunner di Grassi. The accident stopped him to achieve a good result at his home race. Watching him racing since 2008, Personally, I’ve never saw him so disappointed at himself.
Undoubtedly, a lot of things both driving wise and strategy wise should be and will be improved when the drivers learn how to manage battery-life a lot more intelligently.
When this year’s F1 kicked off in Melbourne, how many people cursed against the sound of new V6 Turbo engine? Now how many people still care about the noise? The championship is now focussed on the rivalry between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.
For the drivers on the grid of Formula E, how fast the car goes isn’t as important as their commitment to win and bring a great show to a virgin motorsport audience. At the end of the day, standing at the top of the podium “is like a dream come true”, as acknowledged by di Grassi.
While F1 busily debates on how to bring the pure racing back to the fans amidst other political jostling, Formula E focuses on racing technological development. Why don’t we just enjoy the spectacle of pure competition?