Formula E Beijing ePrix Race Discussion

[Dario Resta]

Despite the lack of speed, I quite enjoyed it. The Prost - Heidfeld collision proved it's still possible to have a pretty big accident even at reduced speed - for Heidfeld it must have felt like slow motion!

I admit I hadn't read up on how this would be run, so when Prost was down to about 20% power with more than half the race to go, I thought we'd just have a load of dead cars sitting around the circuit long before the end. I didn't realise they change cars in the pit stops! The programme itself was poorly presented and the on screen graphics rubbish, but the racing was actually pretty decent

 

[KekeTheKing]

Watched the first couple laps on Saturday and I just finished the race tonight. Gave it a 6. Tough one for Heidfeld, although I was a bit surprised that he went for it when he did.

The racing was half decent but I'm sure the reduced speeds help that a bit. Montagny was the star of the race for me. Some great moves, especially on his teammate!!

The format is far from perfect, and teething issues are to be expected. The gap in the schedule now is horrific and come the holiday season this series may be pretty far from a lot of people's minds. They certainly have a bunch of big names and an inaugural race with a final lap incident certainly won't hurt though.

Overall you'd have to say Round 1 was a success. Except for Trulli of course. I think I would have stayed in the Vineyards if I was Jarno.

 

[Titch]

It was certainly interesting, even though they sound like a bunch of Dodgem cars. I thought it was a bit of a procession, although Heidfeld did his best to knock that on it's head. I'm hoping as they get the feel of it, there will be a bit more racing. I gave it a 6.

 

[Josh]

That article perfectly sums up everything wrong about this dreadful series.

Music during the race FFS!

You said you didn't even watch mate so why are you saying it's dreadful? You've been nothing but negative for a while now.

 

[Brogan]

I believe that is my prerogative.

 

[Dizzi]

I only managed to catch the last two laps of the race & to be honest it all seemed slightly surreal.
It was so quiet & looked relatively slow except for Nick Heinfeld's audition for Tumble.
I found the commentary poor and the studio stuff was awful.
I will give it another go now I've more idea what it's about & there's some old drivers there I like.
I'll just remember to switch off the studio stuff, honestly where did they drag that woman from?!
A group of us could have done a far better job.

 

[FB]

Jenny Gow is on 5Live as their pit lane reporter and does a pretty good job. I thought the technical bloke was quite interesting but Jan Maldenborough wasn't capable of putting a sentence together so it was a bit of an up hill battle for her.

 

[cider_and_toast]

It's clear that with 7 pages of responses it has generated some interest out there in motorsport land (at least from the members of this forum anyway). From what I've read most of the comments talk about how we would make it better.

From a presentation point of view it seemed as if the presenters and commentry team hadn't given any thought as to how to sell the race to the viewers. I hink it lacked credability.

I can't be sure but I'm guessing the commentry was done in the old BBC way from a studio in the UK (or not in China anyway). It just lacked sparkle for want of a better word

It will be interesting to see how much changes in eleven weeks.

 

[F1Yorkshire]

Jann Mardenborough was definitely out of his depth. He's still relatively new to the racing scene, while its good that he gets media exposure he doesn't have the depth of experience in that kind of environment.

I think they are going to struggle to attract the casual fans. Most people I've spoke to at work were not impressed at all. Some of the more serious race fans are willing to give it a go but they need to up their game if it want's to become a mainstream series.

 

[Fenderman]

Mardenborough is somewhat young and thrown in at the deep end. The important thing is he wasn't wrong in anything he said and he didn't diss anybody. WTF was wrong with that? Meanwhile the pro's were simply crap trying to big up a non-event with rambling fluff. What little they said with any real value to it didn't exactly amount to much more than what young Mardenborough said.

 

[RasputinLives]

Mardenborough was actually quite informative during the feature where he drove the Formula E car just not great in the studio.

 

[Fenderman]

Indeed. Give the lad time, after all it's not that long ago that his only seat was in front of a TV screen driving a video game. Not quite the experience of a Karun Chandhok, methinks.