Vandoorne going electric!

[Fire99]

Vandoorne is off to Formula E at the end of this McLaren contract..

https://www.crash.net/fe/news/907589/1/vandoorne-c...

[ukaskew]

Fair play to him, he's incredibly talented but yet another driver that F1 has spat out after struggles in a terrible, terrible car. His performance in GP2 (and indeed the other formulas) was pretty special, as is his win ratio across the various 'spec' championships.

FE has a pretty impressive driver line-up on the books now.

Edited by ukaskew on Monday 15th October 10:45

[Fire99]

ukaskew said:

Fair play to him, he's incredibly talented but yet another driver that F1 has spat out after struggles in a terrible, terrible car. His performance in GP2 (and indeed the other formulas) was pretty special, as is his win ratio across the various 'spec' championships.

FE has a pretty impressive driver line-up on the books now.

I'm not a fan of FE so I feel sorry for Vandoorne that this is the path that he's found himself on.

I agree that his previous results point to ability that just hasn't shone with McLaren. It's kinda a shame that maybe another team wouldn't take a punt on him making good with them.

[Kraken]

Why should the "old guard" retire when they're still producing the goods and attracting the audiences?

What happens if you replace all the older drivers with the up and coming teenagers? No new seats for 20 years...

[turbomoped]

Has done Buemi no harm and must be better than running round with the feeble chance of a low points score in F1 for your whole career.

[andburg]

weirdly hes going to a team with strong mercedes ties and Wehrlein is off to Mahindra

sure i read Ocon turned down a FE drive, probably the seat VanDoorne now has

[belleair302]

Purists may not like Formula E, but talk to teenagers and younger, they love Formula E. City centre based, very open pits, immersive technology and friendly drivers signing and posing for photos with fans. Everything F1 isn't and is losing fans because of.

[glazbagun]

They have JE Vergne over at FE, too.

Since the demise of the N/A F1 cars and the many poor tracks, I reckon there'll be less and less between them, excitement wise. When/If electric really takes off (as in- they outsell Petrol in Europe/Far East) anyone who makes anything like a city car will be piling in there with sponsorship money.

[LaurasOtherHalf]

ash73 said:

Not enough of the old guard retiring, maybe they should be limited to a certain number of seasons?

He’s had his arse handed to him pretty much every weekend by his “old guard” team mate.

He isn’t the first talented youngster who couldn’t hack it in F1, he won’t be the last.

[andburg]

seems Toto called Stoffel to enquire, probably straight after he got off the phone to Ocon who turned it down.

[stinkyspanner]

It must be gutting to be in F1 then end up in poxy Formula E. Aside from all the promotion and razmattaz it's like an FF1600 race (not that FF1600 is bad, but it's a bit of a backward step if you know what I mean)

[Kraken]

stinkyspanner said:

It must be gutting to be in F1 then end up in poxy Formula E. Aside from all the promotion and razmattaz it's like an FF1600 race (not that FF1600 is bad, but it's a bit of a backward step if you know what I mean)

Depends, I expect he's getting paid just as well if not more so. He has far more chance of winning than he ever did in F1. What's the point in going round and round in circles in a faster car being lapped? I'd rather be in a slower series with a chance of winning.

At the end of the day he's a professional paid driver in a flagship world championship status FIA series in potentially one of the top teams/cars. 99.9% of drivers would give their left bk for that chance.

[thegreenhell]

andburg said:

seems Toto called Stoffel to enquire, probably straight after he got off the phone to Ocon who turned it down.

I bet he got really excited when he saw Toto's name come up on his phone. Imagine the disappointment of the conversation that followed.

"So Lewis is retiring?... Oh. Valtteri then? Oh. What? Formula E?"

[chunder27]

Its the only step down from f1 now, they are well paid for driving milk floats, what's not to like.

Unless you watch it

[Kraken]

Don't get the hatred for FE. I watch a huge amount of motorsport as well as taking part at a clubman level. I've never fallen asleep watching an FE race which is more than I can say for F1.

Takes a little while to get used to the lack of noise but once you get into it's very apparent that the cars are a real challenge to drive and there are some really good battles.

[Teddy Lop]

belleair302 said:

Purists may not like Formula E, but talk to teenagers and younger, they love Formula E. City centre based, very open pits, immersive technology and friendly drivers signing and posing for photos with fans. Everything F1 isn't and is losing fans because of.

Paywallings the only thing costing f1 fans. Anyway since when did how many 12 year olds approve of something become a benchmark for good taste?

When you put a sport on FTA and give away 20,000 tickets for free cuz you can't sell 'em you'll tend to find a load of kids with no money will take an interest.


Although with one car races as I understand the case for 19 to be, drop a couple of the siller things they do and you could start to build a respectable racing series. Certainly some talent headed there this year that'll want to be noticed.

[Bullitt Five-Oh]

Kraken said:

I've never fallen asleep watching an FE race which is more than I can say for F1.

I don't know anyone who could fall asleep being exposed to the brain piercing noise that the FE cars make.

[chunder27]

If it's the future, then I certainly will be lost to motorsport as will most people my age, we have all tried it, given it a chance, and while thee is merit in it, the tracks, cars, pathetic range, silly rules, car design, and for me the politics just make me not want to watch anyway, all these companies are there on a PR exercise, nothing more. Dressing it up as electric research, lol, yea right.

To be honest I have been struggling with most big motorsport in recent years anyway, I find most series dull, boring and so controlled, any sense of sport is lost behind paywalls, rules, right holders, crap tv deals, drab tracks and cars and awful coverage.

But hey, that is just me

[StevieBee]

chunder27 said:

If it's the future,

Don't think FE is the 'future' as such - but it certainly has a future.

Next season's cars look quite sexy and are supposed to be faster and able to run a full distance.

[Mr Tidy]

StevieBee said:

Don't think FE is the 'future' as such - but it certainly has a future.
Next season's cars look quite sexy and are supposed to be faster and able to run a full distance.

But surely FE is 4th rate on a good day - they don't do 200 miles, can't run for 2 hours so how is that ever going to be useful to the buying public?

The only way is down for Vandoorne IMHO!

Mind you an FE might be quicker than a McLaren.