Formula E deserves a second chance | PH Footnote

Don't knock it until you've tried it

Anyone who’s ever gone to watch Formula 1, Le Mans, the BTCC or one of the countless GT3 championships in person will have likely done so to have their ears seduced by the sound of cylinders chasing their redlines. And, let’s face it, most of the time you’ve got no idea what is actually going on in the race because the jumbotron with the live feed is miles away and the commentator is an excitable mess. But you don’t care - not when there’s a field of six, eight, ten or twelve-cylinder thoroughbreds tearing around for hours on end.

Naturally, this is a problem Formula E has been battling since its first race on the streets of Beijing back in 2014. The championship’s single-make, single-seater cars are not totally silent, emitting an electric whine that ascends in pitch with speed, but the series knows it can’t win people over on electrical whizzes alone, leading organisers to find novel ways to spice up the show. Some work better than others, such as the current ‘Attack Mode’ where drivers must run offline on a particular corner twice per race to unlock 50kW (or 68hp) extra power for a maximum of four minutes. Fortunately, the old ‘FanBoost’, where viewers could vote on who received extra power in races, was binned because ex-F1 driver Stoffel Vandoorne kept hogging the vote. For whatever reason.

Then there’s the racing, which is utterly manic. The cars may be narrow and relatively light at 840kg for the current Gen3 machines, but they more often than not look too big for the dinky street circuits they typically race on. Overtakes require commitment and there’s a good chance you’ll come out the other side minus a front wing. But even though the cars are more powerful than they’ve ever been with up to 476hp, the aero doesn’t really serve any purpose other than to decorate the circuit with shards of carbon fibre. Granted, the racing can come across as clumsy at times due to the sheer amount of contact during a race, but there’s no denying it’s action-packed.

Nevertheless, many motorsport aficionados have tuned out over the years, and I consider myself to be one of them. The cars lack the purpose of a Le Mans prototype, nor are they instantly recognisable like a GT or touring car. And while the racing is close, I’ve always found it too gimmicky and artificial. However, those opinions were formed without having ever attended a Formula E race in person, only dipping into the occasional live broadcast when there’s nothing else on. So, with the series’ tenth season coming to a close in what was gearing up to be a nail-biting finale in London over the weekend, the time seemed right to put my prejudices aside and see what electric racing truly had to offer.

The venue for the finale would be the mad half-indoor, half-outdoor circuit built in and around London’s ExCel centre. It’s a fiddly track (true to Formula E form) though there are a few parts where the cars can get up to some proper speeds. Interestingly, the pitlane is housed inside one of the exhibition halls which, from my vantage point at the final corner looking down to turn one, felt a bit like the start/finish straight at the Singapore Grand Prix, only without the futuristic city skyline. Or any sky for that matter.

As qualifying begins, you obviously don’t get the swell of engines firing up like you would in another other motorsport - but once up and running they’re surprisingly loud. And varied. The chassis and bodywork may be identical, but teams can develop their own powertrains, software and rear suspension to gain a competitive edge. The Porsche cars, for instance, have a slightly deeper tone to the high-pitched whine of the Maseratis, and while none emit the chest-thumping punch of a combustion engine it still adds to the on-track drama. So much so that the never-ending dance music may as well be switched off.

Qualifying itself is admittedly quite hard to follow. The session begins with two groups, with the top four of each going through to a quarter-final. The fastest from those then progress to the semi-finals, or ‘Duels’ as FE’s marketing team calls it, with the final being the two fastest drivers battling it out for the top two places with the full 476hp unlocked. This provides a good amount of on-track action but unless you’re glued to one of the screens or listen closely to the commentary, it’s tricky to know exactly what’s going on. For the Saturday race I was attending, it was Jaguar’s Mitch Evans on pole ahead of former F1 driver and four-time Le Mans winner Sebastien Buemi.

Admittedly, I didn’t have a clue about what happened in this year’s championship, but I was reliably informed that seven drivers were in with a shot of claiming the driver’s title in London, with Jaguar teammates Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy occupying the top two spots. A great way to quickly immerse yourself in a racing series you know naff all about is to find someone to get behind, so with both Jaguar drivers hunting their first title - and the team's first constructors' - I’d direct my cheers at them. That, and the team kept me and Mrs T well-fed throughout the day.

The start of the race is a proper show, with the lights cut minutes before the race start while Ella Henderson belts out one of her latest songs (can’t remember which one, I’m afraid). Teams have to switch their phone’s torches on to continue working on the cars, though it doesn’t take long for the lights to come back on as the start procedure commences. There’s no warm-up lap, with the cars positioned a space behind where they’d be starting to pull a single burnout to get some heat into the tyres. And because there are no revs to build when the lights come on, the organises play a synthesised hum to build the anticipation. It’s a bit fake, sure, but it’s hard to think of a better way to up the tension.

Once the lights go out, the grid erupts to a high-pitched whirr of 22 electric single-seaters sprinting from 0-62mph in around two and a half seconds. Chaos ensues almost immediately, with Andretti’s Jake Dennis putting a move on Envision’s Robin Frijns into circuit’s high-speed chicane that ends up the latter in the wall. A few laps later, Oliver Roland in the Nissan puts a move on Porsche’s Antonio Felix da Costa that clumsily sends them both head-first into the barrier. I’m at the corner where the accident takes place, and the sound of carbon fibre snapping is horrific as it reverberates off the ExCel’s walls. It’s a slow-speed crash, but with no engine noise to cover the screeching, twisting sound of splintered carbon means you really feel the impact.

From then on, the action is utterly gripping. After leading much of the race, Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein finds his way past Buemi and Evans as the Attack Mode strategies play out, with the Maserati of Maximilian Gunther slotting in behind Wehrlein with ten laps to go. But while electric racers may have fewer parts, they aren’t immune to mechanical failures. As demonstrated by Gunter’s Mazzer, which expires from second place with a handful of laps remaining. That promotes Evans back up to second, while Jaguar teammate Cassidy manages to claw his way up to seventh after qualifying a dismal 17th.

Heading into the final on Sunday, both Jags and the sole Porsche of Wehrlein were in with a shot of clinching the championship. My pass was only for the Saturday race, but Sunday’s finale would prove just as chaotic. Spoiler alert for the Formula E diehard: Wehrlein took the title, which meant the Jag drivers missed out but they still bagged a hard-earned maiden constructor title. And in the space of a weekend, I’d gone from not giving a hoot about Formula E to being gripped by a properly tense season finale. That doesn’t mean it’ll replace F1 or the WEC for my Sunday afternoon motorsport fix, but the London ‘E-Prix’ provided brilliant live entertainment and thrilling racing. So when the Formula E circus rocks up in the British capital next year, give it a shot. You might even find yourself among the converts.

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ex-devonpaul

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