FIA Formula E

Buemi lands a seat for E-DAMs which I'm sure will make Slyboogy happy. E-DAMs now have Renault as their title sponsor as well. Their other driver is Nicolas Prost but as his dad is running the team its no great surprise.

http://www.electricautosport.com/20...a-e-title-sponsor-buemi-prost-signed-drivers/

Italian Michela Cerruti becomes the second lady of Formula E as she was annouced as being the driver to partner Jarno Trulli in his own team.

http://www.electricautosport.com/2014/06/michela-cerruti-becomes-formula-es-second-female-driver/

With the tests begining on Thursday I'd expect more announcements this week.
 
How it is as I see it.
  • Each team has two drivers and each driver has two cars so I assume they have sorted out the garage space problem most tracks have.
  • Each driver is allocated three sets of tyres for the whole weekend and these three sets have to service both cars, so that will be one set for practice and qualifying and the other two sets get used for the race, seems a bit stingy..
  • A driver comes into the pits sometime near the mid point of the race gets out of his car and runs a set amount of distance to his other car and buggers off back to the racing. Is he allowed help getting in and out of the cars at this point?
  • The winner is the bloke with the biggest set of batteries...
Are them the rules or have I got it wrong...?
 
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Pretty much.

Point 1 - All the races are at newly commisioned street circuits (apart from Monaco) so I assume that has been factored in especially as they are on about taking the number of teams up for the following season. I have no idea how they have solved the garage space. Maybe as they don't have actual pitstops they have more room?

Point 2 - The tyres thing does seem a bit stingy but these are Michlin tyres and I'm expecting them to be indestructible. I guess it means you have to pace yourself over the whole day (yes its all on one day).

Point 3 - I assume for safety reasons that they must be. I do think we'll see some 'overtaking' in the pits and can't wait for the first driver to fall over. I do think having a whole other car will effect the race as it has to make a difference.

Point 4 - actually your kind of spot on. After its first year the technical regs go free for all and they have emphasised the fact they hope the sport will develop the technology. It will probably be the case that teams will try and gain an advantage by having more battery life.

The one point you missed is that between every race fans will vote for their favourite driver and the top 3 will each get one power boost to use anytime in the next race. I do think thats silly.

Oh and the aero has been designed specifically so that cars are able to follow each other closely so it won't effect overtaking.

I'm off to a testing session on Friday so I'll get to see of its shaping up like expected.
 
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The whole testing, qualie, race is in one day? How will they make the batteries last as there won't be 8 hours available to charge the bloody things up.
 
They swap cars twice during the race so they must hit full power after 20 mins charge. They keep developing this tech and soon you're phone will be charging in like 30 seconds flat!
 
It is a fact that cannot be ignored that if you charge batteries too quickly you reduce their life usage but maybe Formula E doesn't care about that and thus is not as green as it wants us to believe in fact what with the production cost and recycling cost carbon wise of the batteries I doubt it is any greener than F1 may be even less so...
 
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I agree that the fan vote thing sounds utterly farcical.

I will be interested to see how much overtaking there is on exiting corners. Given the torque characteristics of electric motors, I am willing to bet that such passes will be very few and far between.
 
I went to the test session for the Formula E yesterday and got to do a pit walk for a close up of the cars. To be honest I was quite impressed. I've got loads of pics and will do a write up of it when I have sorted them.

The torque level on these car is at the same level as on F1 cars in the V8 era but the downforce is considerably less. From what I've seen it should make for close racing and the fan 'boost' won't be too much of an advantage.
 
I'm definitely watching the first round out of curiousity, we'll see how good it is then. But if anybody has looked the circuits look garbage, and I am only really worried about that. Not even using the standard Long Beach layout.
 
Just a thought, the DAMS team in Formula E is, I think, owned or run by Alain Prost OBE, Legion d'honour. For those that don't know DAMS used to stand for Driot Arnoux Motorsport but has now been renamed Driot Associes Motorsport. I presume Alain couldn't cope with the name of his nemesis at Renault being part of the name of his team.
 
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