Formula E Hong Kong E-Prix

[cider_and_toast]

Okey dokey then:

Season 1

Seb Buemi did it twice in Monaco and Britain (Race 1)

Season 2

Seb Buemi got pole, fastest lap and won in the first race Beijing

Nicolas Prost won from pole in London Race 1

Season 3

Seb Buemi (getting a trend here) did it in Monaco and Paris

Sam Bird did it at New York in the second race

Lucas Di Grassi did it in Montreal race 1

Season 4

Felix Rosenqvist did it in Hong Kong race 2

JEV did it 3 times in Santiago, Punta Del Este and Paris.

Daniel Abt took pole, fastest lap and the win in Berlin.

 

[RasputinLives]

Well now I look stupid.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Well now I look stupid.

Look on the bright side, the only person to come close to doing it this season was everybody's favourite Mercedes F1 driver in waiting who came within 30 yards of winning from pole only to lose it to a flat battery and an awesome drive from Di Grassi.

 

[Legs]

What a race! Relentlessly edge-of-seat stuff from Bird and Lotterer. I think justice was probably done with the penalty, but it's a really fine line and the race juries don't want to be discouraging such close racing.

 

[F1Brits_90]

Look on the bright side, the only person to come close to doing it this season was everybody's favourite Mercedes F1 driver in waiting who came within 30 yards of winning from pole only to lose it to a flat battery and an awesome drive from Di Grassi.

dont forget da costa won the season opener from pole, but then the next 4 winners have come from 10th, 4th, 2nd & 6th

 

[F1Brits_90]

Lotterer was moving around in braking zone

​

race juries don't want to be discouraging such close racing

I dont think it was moving in braking zone deliberately, we cant forget that this is a car with little mechanical downforce on all weather tyres on damp track. which is why Dario believes they were running 3 secs a lap slower than fully dry track. it was probally going to be a bit twitchy & I would be further in birds corner but he wasnt even alongside his rear tyre & the gap was always going to close

 

[Bill Boddy]

The track was not wide enough to overtake in what would have been the best place for overtaking; it may have been close but I did not find it exciting after the first few laps. There was one red flag and three safety cars all because of the track layout which allowed Lotterer to get to the finish without running out of energy which he was using up at too high a rate.

F1 has been criticised for races where an obviously slower car could hold on to the lead in just the same way. Why is it exciting in F E but not in F1?

 

[RasputinLives]

There were 42 overtakes on lap one.

 

[sobriety]

And the second placed car could follow closely enough to make you think he might just be able to pass, and closely enough for the driver to think "**** it" and have a go.

 

[RasputinLives]

And you're underestimating the driving skill of Lotterer in the defence. He had to place the car just right coming into that chicane every lap or Bird would have had him (as we saw before).

 

[cider_and_toast]

One interesting thing I've noticed, if we can use our humble little site as a litmus test is that we are definitely starting to see more discussion on Formula E. Gradually it's picking up momentum.

If only they'd kept the "E" J

 

[FB]

I got a tweet put on screen on the BBC FE coverage. It's only the third tweet I've ever sent.

 

[RasputinLives]

What did it say?

 

[gethinceri]

"It's going to be shit"?

 

[FB]

No Geth, the BBC doesn't publish rude tweets

I wrote "Morning folks. Been with FE since race 1 and looking forward to another totally unpredictable race. Thank you BBC for running the live feed" - what a suck up eh. I hope it helps to encourage them to show more races live.

 

[RasputinLives]

I actually think they would if most of them didn't clash with Final Score on a Saturday. Certainly had people talking to me about it this week who wouldn't normally watch it so guess it caught people's eyes over breakfast.

Edit - the next one is in China at about same time so will be interesting to see if they show it.

 

[F1Brits_90]

I actually think they would if most of them didn't clash with Final Score on a Saturday. Certainly had people talking to me about it this week who wouldn't normally watch it so guess it caught people's eyes over breakfast.

Edit - the next one is in China at about same time so will be interesting to see if they show it.

i worry that is it, because im sure in the press release they said, only 1 race would be televised on bbc 2 the rest would be on red button, but a peak 355,000 surely has to be encourage espically when Japanese gp on ch4 at similar times only 650k. would be mean they can have try it on BBC 2 again espcially as its quiet week, 6 nations has finished, football on international week & F1 is week either side

Live BBC coverage and exciting racing give Formula E the chance to reach its potential

 

[Bill Boddy]

There were 42 overtakes on lap one.

With only 22 cars?

One reason was because the grid was upside down, when that has been suggested for F1 it has been howled down. Another reason is that the circuit is so narrow that when a pass was made it got the driver there was a slower driver in the way so there was passing and re-passing due to the lack of space.

I am not against Formula E as such but imo the circuits are simply not up to standard for a serious motor racing series. The gimmicks do not help, the one about power boost in particular; with that in F1 the overtakes would be trebled but to what end? If the racing can stand up to standard such ideas are pointless and take away from the show.

 

[RasputinLives]

The powerboost isn't about overtakes it's about adding an elememt of tactics to the racing. Every series has it in the form of tyre changes or fuel changes. Formula E doesn't have that.

As for track being too narrow to overtake etc -nearly every track we go to in F1 we are told how difficult it is to overtake at and they are mass sprawling things with corners the size of runways. What I saw on Sunday was 2 drivers driving nose tail for the whole race each one knowing one error would cost them which I haven't seen in F1 for a while. Obviously others might feel differently.

Interested to know what you mean by mixed up grid by the way. They all get same chance in qualifying.

 

[Bill Boddy]

.... They all get same chance in qualifying.

But they are not all equal in the races. I didn't see qualifying but from where the drivers were on the grid and what the commentators said the grid was nowhere near what one would have expected.