129 replies to this topic

[SophieB]

Possibly like me, you've been following the news of the new Formula E, the world's first fully-electric racing series due to start in September. You can catch up with news of it in eronrules' excellent thread here or the official website here.

 

However, they are including a detail that has given several of us pause. They are going to encourage fans to vote on social media for the driver they want to give an edge to in the race.

 

 

The online fan vote, which will close shortly before the start of a race, will allow the three most popular drivers to receive one boost each, which will increase the power of the car from 133kw (180bhp) to 200kw (270bhp).

 

 

Source: http://www.autosport...7744.1401970830

 

So, I want to find out if anyone thinks this is a good idea. My suspicion is that everyone hates it and the only people supporting it also hate it but figure there are people out there who will like it and that it will encourage closer engagement and stuff like that. So, socially engage with this poll and let people know what you think!

[KingTiger]

I can't think of one good thing about that series. I can't see myself ever watching it. 

[IPBushy]

For goodness sake, what are they doing? This would be so unfair, aside from being ridiculous. It's as bad as double points, sprinklers and other ludicrous suggestions for motor sport.  How about the championship leader having to start from the back of the grid, or to have to drive one extra lap?  Whatever next?!!  

 

(I think I've made my point!!!)

Edited by IPBushy, 01 July 2014 - 07:49.

[SophieB]

They could at least allow an option for people to vote for no boosts for anyone.

[ensign14]

Giving bonus boost to drivers thanks to the will of the mob is perhaps the most cretinously moronic idea in the history of motor racing.  And given that those ideas include such genius provisions as The Chase, double points and Yeongam, that's against quite stiff opposition.

[bourbon]

I'm so jazzed one of my favorite drivers is back in motorsports, I don't really care what crazy rules they apply.  But it is a terrible idea, unfair, unsporting and well, stupid. 

 

I'll be voting for Jaime.

[PAGATRON]

Is this some vein attempt to get the X-Factor crowd watching?

[Seanspeed]

Oh dear god.

I'd like to know how they're going to stop the drivers from complaining loudly about this.

[redreni]

I voted no, and I'd just like to add that, before I heard about this rule, I had every intention of watching at least the first couple of races in their entirety, and, depending how good I thought it was, would have been quite open to the idea of being a regular viewer. And I was considering going to the Battersea Park event, assuming it goes ahead. Specifically because of this regulation, I now have absolutely no intention of watching any of it, attending any races or taking any interest in the championship whatsoever, until and unless they decide to endeavour to run the races fairly.

For me, this is several steps over the line of acceptability.

Edited by redreni, 01 July 2014 - 08:24.

[kraduk]

arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh

[Nonesuch]

I voted yes, because the sooner the ridiculous nature of such a scheme is out there for all to see, the sooner the people discussing this in meeting rooms far from the track will be called on their nonsense. It's unfortunate for the series that this happens right at the start of its life, because it'll no doubt cloud its reputation among racing fans. Then again, I'd rather they experiment in these categories than in F1. It has enough shenanigans already.

[Buttoneer]

I've gone for 'another option' and my explanation is that I think it will be interesting.  By which I mean, why not give it a try?  It may not have any significant effect on the final results anyway but considering that motorsport is having to compete with a number of other demands on peoples attention at the moment, it might serve to boost audience engagement.

 

It seems to me that that there is no great harm in trying it.  It's not like they have an existing fanbase to piss off and it's a move that might get a lot of first-timers watching for the opportunity to get a bit of X-Factor voting action.

 

The fuddy duddies can carry on watching F1 with its traditional DRS, cheese tyres and double points for the last race.

[Dolph]

I voted no, and I'd just like to add that, before I heard about this rule, I had every intention of watching at least the first couple of races in their entirety, and, depending how good I thought it was, would have been quite open to the idea of being a regular viewer.

 

Specifically because of this regulation, I now have absolutely no intention of watching any of it, .... or taking any interest in the championship whatsoever, until and unless they decide to endeavour to run the races fairly.

For me, this is several steps over the line of acceptability.

 

The same for me.

 

Its  like. "Hey, we like Usain Bolt better than Asaffa Powell. Lets give him a 10 meter head start." 

[PayasYouRace]

I don't like it. It's just not sporting.

[Lights]

"One boost each" 

 

Meaning, they get something like one surge of old-fashioned KERS down a straight?

While unfair, what is the actual effect during the course of a race? Not a crazy amount I can imagine. But they don't really do well in explaining this.

[Brackets]

The fuddy duddies can carry on watching F1 with its traditional DRS, cheese tyres and double points for the last race.

The fact that F1 has been made to suck should not be a free-for-all to make FE suck too. Never mind suck even worse. At the very least the DRS, cheese tyres and double points are ‘the same for all’.

(that sounded as if I defended DRS, cheese tyres, or the double-points. Obviously I don’t)

[sopa]

Oh dear god.

I'd like to know how they're going to stop the drivers from complaining loudly about this.

 

Post-race press conference.

 

Q: "Driver B, you were leading the race, but Driver A managed to overtake you with an extra boost from fans. How do you feel?"

 

Driver B: "Well, I was giving my best, I was leading the race. I tried to defend and do anything I can to win this race. But I guess that's racing as they say?!"

[Risil]

What happens if a driver is really popular on 4Chan or something?

[sheepgobba]

Voting for who gets a free pass is a marketing policy imo. They need views and the investors who are pumping into this series need a ROI. What better tool for the first initial float in the first ever race, with fans given a choice to attract the audience and hype it up. This ideology of allowing the fans to vote is primarily in my eyes a marketing tool to get views in general and primarily to recover some of their investment, as well as allowing sponsorship a return too. But so far this has worked and has us lot speaking about it, which I think may lead to many here watching the first race to see the product.

 

Although this arbitrary voting is too much and the whole idea of electric and changing cars during pitstop won't be successful in my eyes. 

[FerrariV12]

Voted no - I'm in the camp that was mildly curious and likely to have watched at least the first race or two (and had the planned for technical competition come in for the 2nd season, almost certainly a regular viewer), but this has killed it stone dead for me.

 

Not only is it even worse (and that takes some going) than anything F1 has done in the past few years, at least F1 has - with me personally anyway - built up lots of credit in the bank since 1991, which while being rapidly eroded is still there, and requires me personally to wean off it, and to be honest only a resurgent WEC has enabled me to spend less time watching F1. On the other hand I've lived happily without Formula E for the past 23 years, and I can continue to do so.

[sopa]

The same for me.

 

Its  like. "Hey, we like Usain Bolt better than Asaffa Powell. Lets give him a 10 meter head start."   

 

Vettel would not have won the 2012 championship if fan voting was involved.

 

One feature is missing though - also based on fan voting the engine of one driver will go spectacularly kabooom... But unlike the Top3 boost drivers, the name of this blown-engine driver won't be introduced, so it will come as a complete surprise when he blows up. Fans even vote, on which lap will the failure take place. Could be good chance it happens on the last lap!

 

Oh I forgot, electric engines can't "blow up". Well, then they can introduce artificial blowing! Just like the sparks.

[thegamer23]

The idea at the base isn't that shitty (to involve people more directly in the race weekend), but the way they are developing recently is a bit unfair.
Obviously Frank Montagny or Katherine Legge (for example) will never get the fan boost. Poplular drivers will have always an advantage and that isn't exactly fair during a race. 
Also, the power gain of the FanBoost is way too high imho. A huge difference in terms of power, i expected something less. 

But we have also to consider that the calendar is composed entirely by street circuits. Long straights will be limited, so the overtake won't be easy in any case, even with a fanboost actived. 
Also, i don't find this fanboost much more ridicolous than artificial stuff like DRS, Double points, Artificial Sparks, diffuser megaphone or engineer-controlled cars.
What i find really ridicolous is the "music for crashes, fanboost and overtake". Seriously, what is that? 
 

 

Anyway i'm still looking forward to the serie. Some high-calibre drivers, with both experienced and young guns are already signed up and more has to come. 
The car itself (from what we have seen so far) is very twitchy and powerful in acceleration (if not in top speed).
They look and sound alien, obviously you can't expect loud electric engines. 

We should see good racing in the streets, that's what really matters.


 

Edited by thegamer23, 01 July 2014 - 09:06.

[PretentiousBread]

I don't see how something this fake can even be up for debate, of course it's a terrible idea. Can't believe people even countenanced this, much less put it into action. What a joke.

[Mat13]

No, but the more I think about it, the more I like it. It makes F1 look sensible, which is quite an achievement. I was following this, but I wasn't keen enough on it to put up with this rubbish.

[LeClerc]

LOL ! What's next ?  Call in for a puncture (1€ from fixed networks)

 

You can't make **** like this up

[ensign14]

I've gone for 'another option' and my explanation is that I think it will be interesting.  By which I mean, why not give it a try? 

 

Because the whole nature of Formula E is that they're trying to show that electric cars can be racers.  It's not meant to be purely a PR stunt or a series of demo runs but proof that you can have racing outside the petrol world.  And for that it's meant to be racing on the level, who can do the best job.  Introducing an artificial boost at the whim of the Great Unwashed destroys the whole philosophical basis for it being a racing series and turns it into a 3D cartoon.

[sopa]

At the moment they have pre-race voting, but surprised they haven't done "live-voting" while they are at it already. 

 

Really, somewhere in the (un)foreseeable future they might develop live-voting too. Whenever you are leading the race, you are basically cursed, because fans would constantly vote for the cars behind you to catch up. Basically this would open up a completely new avenue of race strategy. You have to play on the emotions of fans well, and position yourself perfectly well before the final lap to get the boost at the right time and win the race!

[Bloggsworth]

Coming to an F1 race near you in the future. At the post safety car restart fan-choice will be given a 10 second start...

[sopa]

By the way, a Gilles Villeneuve style drift through a corner would be very recommendable, because this would immediately excite fans and you'd likely get a boost. It doesn't matter if you wasted your tires a little bit with your maneuver, the boost would more than make up for it!

[SophieB]

Coming to an F1 race near you in the future. At the post safety car restart fan-choice will be given a 10 second start...

 

I appreciate there are possible F1 parallels to be imagined here but they would take over the thread if encouraged. We're discussing something specific for now that's actually happening to a different, much smaller series.

[Goron3]

Typical response from those who don't know how to use social media effectively.

 

A better idea would be to interview those in press conferences who were most popular on twitter over a 24hr period. This would be great in F1, as long as it was done so that people couldn't just keep picking Kimi to turn up every other week 

[Sheepmachine]

Is the vote done before the race starts or as it is underway?

[SophieB]

Is the vote done before the race starts or as it is underway?

 

Before. From the Autosport piece:

 

"The online fan vote, which will close shortly before the start of a race..."

[Buttoneer]

 
But we have also to consider that the calendar is composed entirely by street circuits. Long straights will be limited, so the overtake won't be easy in any case, even with a fanboost actived. 
 

Well indeed.  And this is the part which could prove to be most toxic to the idea.  When I vote, I want the results to be visible when I win, which means the drivers needs to do something visibly 'more' with his car than the others.  If it doesn't happen, why would I vote next time?

 

Because the whole nature of Formula E is that they're trying to show that electric cars can be racers.  It's not meant to be purely a PR stunt or a series of demo runs but proof that you can have racing outside the petrol world.  And for that it's meant to be racing on the level, who can do the best job.  Introducing an artificial boost at the whim of the Great Unwashed destroys the whole philosophical basis for it being a racing series and turns it into a 3D cartoon.

 

If the great unwashed are willing to vote and watch because they voted then I don't see any harm at all in seeing this idea played out in a series which doesn't really matter that much.  They are trying to prove that they are different from other racing series.  They lack the noise and the personalities as well as the budget and marketing, so doing something different is what they have.

 

Others may turn off because of this buit I will watch specifically to see how this plays out.

[Rinehart]

I really can't see how they can call this event motorSPORT, if certain competitors are getting an advantage based on popularity.

 

If it is to be branded as a "show" then fine, they can do what they like, I'm sure a small portion of x-factor fanatics who also like cars and green things will be interested.

 

But I'd be very surprised if this sort of gimmick will do anything other than alienate fans of motor racing - the SPORT. Even double points and reverse grids are directly related to competition, rightly or wrongly, but this is the first thing I can think of which isn't remotely related to any actual performance. Its not sport. How does a winner feel about it when he's given a last lap boost to cruise by the 2nd place guy???

 

Imagine if in the world cup you could vote for a team to have a "boost" penalty or something. The entire outcome of the tournament would probably be determined by it. 

[HuddersfieldTerrier1986]

Not a fan of the idea to be honest, seems a bit.......well, gimmicky. Also there's surely the issue of if the same 3 drivers get the boost for each race it seems a bit unfair on the rest of the drivers. I'll still watch as I'll watch almost anything that has 4 wheels and races around a track, but the fan vote boost isn't a good idea.

[Rinehart]

I've gone for 'another option' and my explanation is that I think it will be interesting.  By which I mean, why not give it a try?  It may not have any significant effect on the final results anyway but considering that motorsport is having to compete with a number of other demands on peoples attention at the moment, it might serve to boost audience engagement.

 

It seems to me that that there is no great harm in trying it.  It's not like they have an existing fanbase to piss off and it's a move that might get a lot of first-timers watching for the opportunity to get a bit of X-Factor voting action.

 

The fuddy duddies can carry on watching F1 with its traditional DRS, cheese tyres and double points for the last race.

Yes all sports are fighting for audience but what other sport has decided that fans can vote to influence outcomes? 

 

Its also going to cause a bit of an issue within the betting industry I would imagine.

[Rinehart]

Because the whole nature of Formula E is that they're trying to show that electric cars can be racers.  It's not meant to be purely a PR stunt or a series of demo runs but proof that you can have racing outside the petrol world.  And for that it's meant to be racing on the level, who can do the best job.  Introducing an artificial boost at the whim of the Great Unwashed destroys the whole philosophical basis for it being a racing series and turns it into a 3D cartoon.

Maybe Shell or someone has paid a massive amount of money to make sure FE is ****...

[Buttoneer]

I really can't see how they can call this event motorSPORT, if certain competitors are getting an advantage based on popularity.

 

In F1 one team gets more money to compete just because they have been in the sport for longer than others or have a special relationship with the organiser.

[zdzisio]

I think I could entertain this idea if the drivers eligible for this bonus would be limited to those from the back of the grid. Even as much as the hole lower half.

[Brother Fox]

The vote to pass thing is just awful.

Unsporting, unfair, unwanted.

[krapmeister]

Almost as much of a sh!t idea as the swapping of cars halfway through the race...

[Brackets]

In F1 one team gets more money to compete just because they have been in the sport for longer than others or have a special relationship with the organiser.

We've been here before, on this very thread: "The fact that F1 has been made to suck should not be a free-for-all to make FE suck too."

This is not about the sorry state of F1. This is about FE.

And FE is 'new'. It can start from scratch, on a clean sheet. Yet they're already fixing problems that are currently undiscovered.

[Sheepmachine]

Before. From the Autosport piece:

"The online fan vote, which will close shortly before the start of a race..."

Apologies. I wasn't fully awake when I read that article.

I'm not sure about this fan boost idea. It's very gimmicky. But I suppose they are trying to involve the fans more so that has to be applauded I guess. It could effect the championship near the end of course. One driver is barely in contention so fans vote for the underdog in the championship then he wins. Might cause an angry outburst. I will vote for the I don't know option as I want to see it in action first.

[Spillage]

A terrible gimmick which takes away from an otherwise extremely promising series.

Racing isn't about the good guy winning. It's about the best guy winning.

[thiscocks]

haha what a terrible idea.

 

Upon first reading I thought it meant this sort of fan boost: 

 

Edited by thiscocks, 01 July 2014 - 10:55.

[rhukkas]

Good pure racing doesn't bring spectators in. If that were the case then this forum would be full up of people talking about Bas Lammers, marco Ardigo and Davide Fore.

 

So, FE realises good racing will not get it that far. The know they are going to struggle to attract oldskool motorsport fans who want the noise, sot hey have to get young viewers in.Fan vote in it's previous guise of integration with social media was more promising, but it's no inherently a terrible idea.

[spacekid]

No. I won't be watching the series because of this.

I like motor sports/racing. This is clearly just entertainment with no sporting integrity. That's the way the series wants to go to bring in viewers and I wish them well I suppose (although I do worry about the knock on effect of other motor sports having to dumb down to this level) but fan voting means I will be skipping this. A shame as I was previously planning on checking the series out.

[redreni]

"One boost each" 

 

Meaning, they get something like one surge of old-fashioned KERS down a straight?

While unfair, what is the actual effect during the course of a race? Not a crazy amount I can imagine. But they don't really do well in explaining this.

 

I expect most races won't turn on it. It's a considerable horsepower advantage, but I take "one boost" to mean that when you deploy it, it lasts until you brake. So on a tight street course, not very long. That's probably why they decided to increase the amount of extra energy the boost gives, because they were worried it wasn't going to make a difference.

 

However, for me it's enough that it might make a difference. There will be marginal cases where a pass is just impossible, where the boost will make it just possible. And it's not just the unfairness, it's the interactivity. Sports promoters and broadcasters are always incredibly keen on making the coverage interactive, and I'm very much against that. I would like broadcasters to make a conscious effort to make their coverage less interactive, and more interesting and informative. And I just simply don't think it's a good idea to have a series where a driver knows that his ability to win votes from the viewers may affect his ability to win races. That's not sport, it's X Factor.

 

Perhaps Butoneer is right - this championship isn't aimed at people like me. If that's the case, fine, I'm doing the right thing by avoiding it and using the time to watch something I actually like, like Blancpain Endurance, V8 Supercars, WEC, ELMS, USC etc.

[Thomas99]

So one driver will have an unfair advantage and a car faster than everyone else?

Nothing like F1!