Formula E 2021 race and season discussion

[Kraken]

[quote=kiseca]

Bird was great. I really want to see him do well this year, he always seems to be doing something interesting in the race.

But Evans was my driver of the day. His superpole lap wasn't the fastest, but was absolutely the best to watch, with him throwing his car around Monaco at 11/tenths. And then his overtake for the lead going up Beau Rivage. Balls of steel. I think he was on for the win if the safety car hadn't been needed. Great weekend from him.
/quote]
Evans wouldn't have had problems even if the SC hadn't come out. He went energy negative (not enough laps left to regenerate the energy needed to finish) as soon as he did the double overtake with the extra power. From then on he was always compromised but it was worth a go as the others might have gone too deep with energy battling each other as well.

[kiseca]

Kraken]iseca said:

Bird was great. I really want to see him do well this year, he always seems to be doing something interesting in the race.

But Evans was my driver of the day. His superpole lap wasn't the fastest, but was absolutely the best to watch, with him throwing his car around Monaco at 11/tenths. And then his overtake for the lead going up Beau Rivage. Balls of steel. I think he was on for the win if the safety car hadn't been needed. Great weekend from him.
/quote]
Evans wouldn't have had problems even if the SC hadn't come out. He went energy negative (not enough laps left to regenerate the energy needed to finish) as soon as he did the double overtake with the extra power. From then on he was always compromised but it was worth a go as the others might have gone too deep with energy battling each other as well.

That's a fair point. I haven't watched enough of them yet to know when they're really in trouble. When they all look about within 1% of eachother and they're seem to spend somewhere between 5% and 8% a lap, I find it hard to judge (unless there's a graphic somewhere that I'm not interpreting correctly)

[ajprice]

Mexico race 1 build up now. Circuit (yes a race circuit again) looks interesting with a banked last corner. Race 2 tomorrow night.

[ajprice]

Backwards grid with the championship leaders towards the back. Didn't see quali so not sure what happened

[skwdenyer]

ch37 said:

Probably the best race of seen on the Monaco circuit full-stop, great stuff.

Was a great race. To put some context on times: the last time F1 was as slow as F-E, Jim Clark was on pole.

1960s F1 races around there were often contested, too.

[ajprice]

The attack mode back into the main track is really sketchy here, Bird got had yesterday, I can see it happening again anytime now in this race 2.

[EDLT]

ajprice said:

Backwards grid with the championship leaders towards the back. Didn't see quali so not sure what happened

I think it was just the track being so dirty that it increased the advantage to qualifying last that FE is deliberately planned around. It'd be great if they had circuits where overtaking was possible without crashing.

[kiseca]

EDLT said:

ajprice said:

Backwards grid with the championship leaders towards the back. Didn't see quali so not sure what happened

I think it was just the track being so dirty that it increased the advantage to qualifying last that FE is deliberately planned around. It'd be great if they had circuits where overtaking was possible without crashing.

On Saturday the first group out, which is all the championship leaders, were tripping all over eachother on the outlap, bunching up, then basically started racing eachother with a couple of attempted overtakes into the first corner. The car in second I think it was outbraked himself and locked up both his front wheels. Ran wide but because the circuit narrows on the corner exit noone actually got past him so everyone except the driver running first basically lost a second at that moment.

If Formula E has to have a moment of absurdity each race weekend, that was it..... no worse than Formula 1 at Monza lately though.

Di Grassi was irritating me in race 2. He was driving into everyone.

[Kraken]

EDLT said:

I think it was just the track being so dirty that it increased the advantage to qualifying last that FE is deliberately planned around. It'd be great if they had circuits where overtaking was possible without crashing.

There are always going to be more crashes in a series like this compared to more populist ones as the cars are so equal. There are plenty of overtakes in every race which don't end in crashes,

[HustleRussell]

British e-Prix starting at 3

ETA: I am not one to be wilfully negative about Formula E but I am hearing a lot in the buildup about how difficult it is to overtake at this circuit.

Why?

The venue is an arena / car park. The circuit design is a blank slate. Why are they building in the shortcomings traditionally associated with legacy F1 circuits?

Edited by HustleRussell on Saturday 24th July 14:47

[Sammo123]

I’ve just put this on because there’s nothing else to watch. They’re racing around a multi storey car park!! It’s an actual joke right?

[MitchT]

First time I've seen it in over a year - it's so poorly promoted I never know when it's on. The cars seem a little faster than when I last saw it and I see they can now go a race distance without swapping cars half way.

[ch37]

MitchT said:

First time I've seen it in over a year - it's so poorly promoted I never know when it's on. The cars seem a little faster than when I last saw it and I see they can now go a race distance without swapping cars half way.

I think the whole point was to 'bring the racing to the fans' by hosting races in large population centres. Obviously that side of it is a bit of an issue at the moment, what with the pandemic and all.

I imagine the London races may have got some actual BBC coverage (i.e. rather than just iPlayer) if it hadn't clashed with the Olympics.

The Monaco races were genuinely good (far superior to F1, they are so much better suited to the track) so I've no idea why they make the clean slate tracks (such as London) so darn awkward.

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

It will be interesting if it rains tomorrow. Some track indoors, some out. How do they decide on the tyres?

[covboy]

2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:

It will be interesting if it rains tomorrow. Some track indoors, some out. How do they decide on the tyres?

Wets on the right side , Slicks on the left

[Kraken]

2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:

It will be interesting if it rains tomorrow. Some track indoors, some out. How do they decide on the tyres?

They don't have wet/intermediate/dry tyres in Formula E. The single tyre type they use works in all conditions, even snow which they've had once.

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

Kraken said:

2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:

It will be interesting if it rains tomorrow. Some track indoors, some out. How do they decide on the tyres?

They don't have wet/intermediate/dry tyres in Formula E. The single tyre type they use works in all conditions, even snow which they've had once.

Aha, after I posted I did wonder (looking at the tyres). Some rain would spice it up!

[skwdenyer]

Sammo123 said:

I’ve just put this on because there’s nothing else to watch. They’re racing around a multi storey car park!! It’s an actual joke right?

This is the sort of soullessness that only the British seem to be able to achieve. Can you imagine an Italian looking at this set-up and saying "yes, that's going to be a great motorsport venue"?

London could be a great location for this sort of thing, but not in a car park! At least if they had axes and flails it could be a sort of a racing version of robot wars

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

skwdenyer said:

Sammo123 said:

I’ve just put this on because there’s nothing else to watch. They’re racing around a multi storey car park!! It’s an actual joke right?

This is the sort of soullessness that only the British seem to be able to achieve. Can you imagine an Italian looking at this set-up and saying "yes, that's going to be a great motorsport venue"?

London could be a great location for this sort of thing, but not in a car park! At least if they had axes and flails it could be a sort of a racing version of robot wars

The race around Brooklyn industrial estate was worse.

[skwdenyer]

2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:

skwdenyer said:

Sammo123 said:

I’ve just put this on because there’s nothing else to watch. They’re racing around a multi storey car park!! It’s an actual joke right?

This is the sort of soullessness that only the British seem to be able to achieve. Can you imagine an Italian looking at this set-up and saying "yes, that's going to be a great motorsport venue"?

London could be a great location for this sort of thing, but not in a car park! At least if they had axes and flails it could be a sort of a racing version of robot wars

The race around Brooklyn industrial estate was worse.

OK, so not just the British - the anglophones?