Formula E

[Pingguest]

So long as the battery is capable of lasting a full race surely the specifications beyond that don't matter for a spec series.

Power is currently capped at 250kW for qualifying and 200kW for normal race mode (225kW in attack mode). While I don't think the F1 levels of power are necessary it would be nice to either increase the maximum power or be able to race closer to the maximum for longer to limit some of the lift and coast. The battery can do a full race now, but energy density is increasing exponentially, so Gen 3 (presumably in another 4/5 years) will no doubt see a significant improvement in power output or a reduction in the battery pack size. The main issue for weight is the heat cycles from charging/discharging so much in a short time frame, so they need a fair amount of cooling.

Wouldn't it help if the battery wasn't standard?

[Big Tea]

So long as the battery is capable of lasting a full race surely the specifications beyond that don't matter for a spec series.

Power is currently capped at 250kW for qualifying and 200kW for normal race mode (225kW in attack mode). While I don't think the F1 levels of power are necessary it would be nice to either increase the maximum power or be able to race closer to the maximum for longer to limit some of the lift and coast. The battery can do a full race now, but energy density is increasing exponentially, so Gen 3 (presumably in another 4/5 years) will no doubt see a significant improvement in power output or a reduction in the battery pack size. The main issue for weight is the heat cycles from charging/discharging so much in a short time frame, so they need a fair amount of cooling.

Wouldn't it help if the battery wasn't standard?

It would, but then all the teams would use the budget developing batteries.
better if they develop different areas at first.

[godlameroso]

First race is next weekend, pretty stoked.

[jjn9128]

For UK viewers I've just read the BBC aren't showing practice or qualifying on either the red button or BBC sport, which is an absolute joke. I'll be watching on youtube instead.

[Morteza]

Stoffel qualified 5th for the first race. Really happy for him

EDIT: the race didn't go well at all for him which is a pity.

[jjn9128]

Cracking race again. Having now seen it executed I'm sold on attack mode - other than Lopez missing it twice and losing places it was very well implemented (they're a bit too proud of it and cutting away from action to show an empty strip of tarmac could get boring but I think it's the first race they wanted to show it off).

Vergne looks scary quick compared to the other teams/cars, and it looks like DS have sorted the issues they've had for the last 2 years on battery management.

I think the Venturi powertrain (Venturi and HWA run it) has a braking issue which hampered their pre-season as well. This caused the weird Mortara crashes in practice and the race where the car just pushed on, Paffett's retirement and Vandoorne's slump from 4th to 17th. Certainly how he's portraying it!
https://twitter.com/svandoorne/status/1 ... 4825348096

Bring on Marrakesh.

[nacho]

Vergne was totally dominant, missing out of the win because of the penalty. Lotterer was not bad either, Techeetah seems to have a fast drive train and good drivers.

Mortara has an odd crash in the race. I wonder what happened to Audi, it was talked as a favourite before the season.

[marmer]

the standard of the broadcast is awful. never told which cars are onscreen and with half the gird looking the same it makes it hard to figure out who is who.

i watched the race start to finish and it must have been about 5 laps before i knew why massa had dropped back so far

[jjn9128]

the standard of the broadcast is awful. never told which cars are onscreen and with half the gird looking the same it makes it hard to figure out who is who.

i watched the race start to finish and it must have been about 5 laps before i knew why massa had dropped back so far

Seems like an odd complaint... you're rarely explicitly told which car is which in F1. I didn't have much issue following who was who, the exception being the HWA and Jaguar cars. I think it's a matter of experience and knowledge - with F1 we know what the teams are because most of the field have some historic president for their liveries (Ferrari red, Mercedes silver, Renault yellow & black..etc) and we pontificate on the driver line ups for months ahead of the season so we know who is where.

As for Massa, the commentators said Lotterer, Massa, Vergne and Sims had penalties a lap or so before they all pitted to serve them... Unless you weren't watching the world feed commentary group?!

I think the lack of practice hampered the race director as well as the teams though. It helps to test camera angles and crossover times, but like the drivers they were limited to 30 minutes of practice (10 or so was lost for the Mortara red flag) and qualifying.

[adrianjordan]

I want to like this series and see it succeed, but the circuit for this first race of the season just looked like a building site to me.

I get why they're all street races, but actually I would love to see them racing on traditional circuits as well.

[NathanOlder]

Totally agree. Like I said before , tracks like Jerez, Brands & Nurburgring short ect should be where they race. Will be much better racing.

[Andres125sx]

It was a fun race, I did enjoy it

But I can´t understand how most cars finished the race with 9-13% of battery left... is there any new rule to prevent cars pushing the battery too much?

Considering the conditions and the tarmac wich according to the comentators has been sanded and was very very slippery, cars didn´t look slow at all

Is there any coment about pace difference between Gen2 cars and previous?

[jjn9128]

But I can´t understand how most cars finished the race with 9-13% of battery left... is there any new rule to prevent cars pushing the battery too much?

Considering the conditions and the tarmac wich according to the comentators has been sanded and was very very slippery, cars didn´t look slow at all

Is there any coment about pace difference between Gen2 cars and previous?

Loss of practice meant they couldn't optimize the car setup - includes aero and software (which is why so many drivers got penalties in quali and the race). With the timed race (an indeterminate number of laps plus depending when how much time is on the clock as the penultimate lap starts there could be 1-3minutes beyond the 45) plus the random allocation of attack mode time and uses they have to calculate the % of battery per lap more on the fly, whereas before they could determine the kW.h per lap based on a known number of laps. The safety car then messed up the predicted use so they ended with excess capacity. I'd expect them to get closer to 0% as the season goes on and with a normal weekend program!

Already in testing today they were 3s faster than in the race. Marrakesh will give us a true comparison between Gen 1 vs Gen 2.

[marmer]

It was a fun race, I did enjoy it

But I can´t understand how most cars finished the race with 9-13% of battery left... is there any new rule to prevent cars pushing the battery too much?

Considering the conditions and the tarmac wich according to the comentators has been sanded and was very very slippery, cars didn´t look slow at all

Is there any coment about pace difference between Gen2 cars and previous?

Safety car just like in F1 allows cars to save energy and unlike a fuel based formula there is no befits in trying to burn off the fuel / use the charge as you don't get weight benefit in F1 if you noticed you will have excess fuel oyu could run rich during safety car to help out. Just no need to do that in Fe

[Andres125sx]

But I can´t understand how most cars finished the race with 9-13% of battery left... is there any new rule to prevent cars pushing the battery too much?

Considering the conditions and the tarmac wich according to the comentators has been sanded and was very very slippery, cars didn´t look slow at all

Is there any coment about pace difference between Gen2 cars and previous?

Loss of practice meant they couldn't optimize the car setup - includes aero and software (which is why so many drivers got penalties in quali and the race). With the timed race (an indeterminate number of laps plus depending when how much time is on the clock as the penultimate lap starts there could be 1-3minutes beyond the 45) plus the random allocation of attack mode time and uses they have to calculate the % of battery per lap more on the fly, whereas before they could determine the kW.h per lap based on a known number of laps. The safety car then messed up the predicted use so they ended with excess capacity. I'd expect them to get closer to 0% as the season goes on and with a normal weekend program!

Already in testing today they were 3s faster than in the race. Marrakesh will give us a true comparison between Gen 1 vs Gen 2.

Thank you, that makes sense, but even so...