Formula E Paris E-Prix Discussion Thread

RasputinLives

No passing through my dirty air please
Contributor
So Formula E returns to Europe with a first time trip to race around the streets of gay Paris. The organizers have made a lot of fuss over getting a race in the French capital and even more over the track go round 'monuments of old' and 'visions of the future'. To be honest the track doesn't look too brilliant but it races round the Hotel de Ville which I'm sure will be full of visiting VIP's from the FIA. The track also goes past the Army Museum and the Tomb of Napoleon. Not the Eiffel Tower though unfortunately but I am expecting it to look fairly cool even if it can;t match going through Red Square in Russia.

So the French public can not only look forward to a glorious race in their capital but also cheering on an all conquering French team? Sadly no. Once again Ze Germans have overcome the French and against overwhelming odds its the Audi Abt team who arrive at the race in the lead of the teams championship and there driver Lucas Di Grassi who is on top of the drivers championship. There is no question that the EDAMS is the better car and that Buemi is by far the quickest in the field in that package but every weekend they combine to muck things up. Buemi (commonly known as the Moose) is really showing that when it comes to handling pressure he is far from adapt. After and awful race of moaning and complaining in Mexico City he then pulled off stupid move of the century to take himself out in Long Beach. More worryingly he was only in those positions through his inability to get qualifying right. When he is calm and focused we have seen him take pole, fastest lap and easy race win. EDAMS will be hoping that there home race is where that Buemi chooses to reemerge. God knows they can't hold out much hope for Nico Prost.

Di Grassi is laughing really because if he wins the race/title he's awesome and if he loses it then EDAMS had the better car. Lucas is fairly consistent so I expect even if EDAMS pull off a clean race he'll be there in 2nd. It will be interesting to see him mix it up though and with the usually hapless Danny Abt getting a podium last time out there are signs that the Audi Abt car is catching the EDAMS machine up. Virgin and Sam Bird seem to be improving every race too and, whilst Birdy does have the tendency to do some silly things on track, more often than not he holds his own with the front two. If Virgin and Bird are having a good day we could see a three way battle for the lead. Dragon Racing also occasionally hit their stride with Duval and D'ambrosio both showing an impressive turn of speed this season. If one of them lands pole and keeps the lead off the start it would back the race up nicely as we saw in Mexico how difficult the Dragon cars are to pass.

Other interesting factors will Antonio Felix Da Costa and Robin Frinjs lugging around last years machinery. Da Costa has really been denied some amazing results by reliability and has even been at the front in a car which shouldn't compete with the others. Frinjs too has got closer than he should and would have scored a good result but for Buemi crashing into last time out. You also have to hope that maybe being in France wakes JEV up as he really has not shown any of the talent we know he has and we know he has the car to do it.

The race will be this Saturday (23rd April) and will be live on ITV4 (I think we even get the quali) in the UK. Not sure on the international coverage.

Oh and just because I don't know where else to put it - Here's a man doing a backflip over a moving Formula E car. (Skip to 2:50 just to see the stunt).

 
... and Formula E tends to be broadcast live on YouTube anyway, from practice to the race. Which must come as a bit of a shock to F1 fans. You don't see 20 year old stuff on the internet if they have anything to say about it.

Le élan really needs to get his act together. It is difficult to say which of his last two races contained his most stupid instance of driving clean into the back of the driver in front, but he's done it twice. Here they are:


I'd put Maldonado in the other car.

Formula E gets the venues it wants. It's not hob-tied by tradition and excessive speed to do it on closed circuits, which must make Ecclestone hopping mad! Although I imagine most mayors would rather remove their own tongue with a knife than deal with that snake.

From a motor-racing point of view though, you will not be wanting a drive-through penalty at this circuit. The pit entry leaves the track half way through a hairpin and returns - after a hairpin in the actual pitlane - to the circuit mere metres later. Avoid any silliness, guys!

Just to note the reliability of these cars is some achievement. There've been 5 retirements in the last 3 races and 4 of them have been Team Aguri. Who're sponsored by an oil company. :thinking: I suppose we can put some of that down to the old limping in for car 2 effect though.
 
i hoping its going to be better race than mexico & long beach because they were bad races by usual formula e standards, but i cant believe whats happening at Edams because they have the dominant car as buemi proved in Argentina/Uruguay when he came from last to 2nd. but stupid errors are costing him big time. like what was he playing at long beach instead of playing the long game & damage limitation he does a suicide move on fyrins,

but 1 driver that needs to worry is nico prost because for him to be 8th in standings when he's teammate is 2nd 70pts more& should be 1st with 30pts more than he has now
 
Here's the track - as teabagyokel mentions, the pits are very odd.

formula-e-paris-eprix-layout-2016-paris-eprix-layout.jpg
 
Haven't watched an whizzy Formula yet, will try and catch this one or at least some of it. Do the grid mechanics run back to the pits after the start like in F1, and if so how will they get all the way back there? Hoverboards perhaps.
 
They tend to have gone long before. Before the race starts they have time to do a full grid line-up filmed live by a guy on a Segway and I presume they leg it before then. There's no formation lap since the inaugral Formula E race where the formation lap was incredibly pointless.
 
Also pitlane ain't really pitlane in Formula E. I think there has been one tyre change in the entire history of the series and for the car change they just pull in the garage.
 
I always look forward to Formula E weekends. The races are almost always enjoyable. The series is making a lot of good decisions.
 
They tend to have gone long before. Before the race starts they have time to do a full grid line-up filmed live by a guy on a Segway and I presume they leg it before then. There's no formation lap since the inaugral Formula E race where the formation lap was incredibly pointless.

Gotcha thanks. I best watch some then.
 
Just caught up on this. Interesting race whilst not being massively exciting. Buemi messed up quali yet again and Virgin must have cursed seeing the wrong one of there guts get into the first corner first.

Everything going Di Grassi's way at moment and he's not put a foot wrong.

Whilst it's nice to have racing back in France again the circuit could be better. Some awesome late breaking by Frinjs and Da Costa for overtakes though.
 
Now then that's the sort of eprix & racing I've come to expect from a Formula E race after in my opinion the disappointing Mexico & Long Beach rounds. Fantastic battles for 2nd - 5th at 1 point with 2 virgin's & 2 E-Dams battling each other. Although circuit could have done with being wider in parts

But was thinking di grassi I was thinking, wonder if his f1 chance came far too early in his career & just like romain grosjean would actually do justice to his ability on his 2nd chance
 
I think due to the catch was driving it was hard to judge how Di Grassi did in F1 however I think Formula E is a very different beast and you need a very different set of skills. Until today JEV has struggled and we know how quick he was.

Anyways prefer to see them in Formula E as I think it's a good mesh of drivers currently (although if we were to lose Post, Abt and Senna I would't be too upset).

Have Audi Abt and Virgin caught up car wise by the way or are EDams just making a hash of it?
 
Just waiting for di Grassi to be disqualified again. Good race for the top 6, DS should have got JEV to move out of the way to let Birdy have a go at Lucas. Shame it ended under a safety car, who was the bloke who crashed? I presume you need the equivalent to a Super Licence to drive in Formula E, it does seem to attract some less than talented pay drivers.
 
I think Ma has a super licence as he did a few Friday practice sessions for HRT. Unless I'm mixing him up with someone else.

I agree about DS Virgin but I'm guessing it's hard for a French sponsored team to tell the Frenchman from Paris to move over whilst racing on the streets of Paris. I'm hoping this whole thing wakes JEV up a bit because if you see he has only 24pts to Bird's 82 you start to wonder what he's been doing all year.
 
I think the talk was DS-Virgin were quicker on cold tyres - the track/air temperature was miles down on anything Formula E has seen thus far this season. The straights also seemed pretty long by E circuit standards, so their top speed might have had something to do with it.

Having said that, Bird has been pretty rapid in the last couple of races, hasn't he?
 
I love the concept of Formula E, but I hate the execution; the circuits are absolutely Mickey Mouse, with more focus on city centre locations than good circuits!

I'm also slightly bemused by fanboost! After all Jean Eric Vergne has regularly received the fan boost, despite being slow most of the season - people are voting on "who have I heard of?"

Overtakes were very very messy today- essentially the cars had to barge the car ahead out of the way- all of this comes down to the shitty narrow street circuits! It reminds me of an F1 season completely held around the streets of Singapore!

Sorry, rant over!
 
I love street circuits. Think it introduces a whole new set of driving skills. There's no get out with run off and if you're overtaking you really have to plan it. No breezing past because you're car has better horsepower.

As for 'barging past' - I love the late breaking do or die stuff. It's why I fell in love with motor racing to start with.
 
RasputinLives

I think the issues I have is that the circuits that I have seen have always been very narrow and appear very temporary...

I have a lot of sympathy for the idea of not having any run-off- I agree that introducing jeopardy does improve the show..
 
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