272 replies to this topic

[MattPete]

That was fun.

 

They seriously need to beef up the suspension and get the safety car procedures worked out.

[ardbeg]

@Taxi: Top speed is barely 200kph (about 140kph slower than F1 on usual tracks). For lap times i have no idea. We could compare the lap times from the Donnington test with other races at Donnington Park.

 

But the racing is good. I really hope FE will boom. Just keep Bernie out of it.

They are not fast, but they look fast.
F1 is very fast but look and sound slow and tired on TV. It is interesting to note that F1 has done everything wrong. Everything! They have a regulation that makes everyone involved except one singe man to lose money and they force the creation of tracks that is useless for anything else.
 

[DanardiF1]

Finally got to watch this weekend's race... god this series is fun, but those cars are way too fragile, for a spec car there is no reason not to beef the cars up, especially when the season is run entirely on street circuits.

 

I think there are too many penalties surrounding the pit procedures at the moment as well, every race there's at least a couple of drivers in trouble for pit lane speeding or minimum pit time infringements. Maybe it is just the driver's fault but from people like Heidfeld etc it's unexpected really.

 

At least there's a couple of months between now and the next race so there's time for these things to be worked on.

 

Really enjoying Formula E though...

 

PS. SUPER AGURI!!!!!!

Edited by DanardiF1, 12 January 2015 - 02:40.

[ardbeg]

Finally got to watch this weekend's race... god this series is fun, but those cars are way too fragile, for a spec car there is no reason not to beef the cars up, especially when the season is run entirely on street circuits.

 

I think there are too many penalties surrounding the pit procedures at the moment as well, every race there's at least a couple of drivers in trouble for pit lane speeding or minimum pit time infringements. Maybe it is just the driver's fault but from people like Heidfeld etc it's unexpected really.

 

At least there's a couple of months between now and the next race so there's time for these things to be worked on.

 

Really enjoying Formula E though...

 

PS. SUPER AGURI!!!!!!

I think there is already a decision to beef up the suspension and I agree about the penalties surrounding the pit procedures. It is almost inexcusable that at race four there are still many that can not set a timer to 104 seconds. Pit speed limit, like the one Heidfeld got, is of course something that will always happen, but it should never take half a race to figure it out.

They should really, since this is supposed to be the future, have some automated penalties here. Transponders at pit entry and pit exit would tell the car (when it is set in "pit mode") that certain rules apply and it could immediately inform the team if it is going to fast and it can also start the 104 second timer (in the second car). If they have been speeding in pitlane, they could be allowed to clear the penalty by stopping for 20 seconds (for instance) in a penalty area at the pit exit. 

Apart from that there could also be a system that gives them slowdowns for various on track infringements (blinking lights at the back of the car could indicate the car will be on reduced power for 3-5 seconds before it is actually activated to warn drivers.

A drive through/stop&go is, in my opinion, usually a too big penalty since it takes the driver completely out of contention and that is not anything that adds to the excitement. Basically, going 2km/h too fast for 6 meters at the pit entry equals to crashing out.

[DrF]

Better than a lot of F1 races I've seen, even if a bit chaotic.

[thegamer23]

I think there is already a decision to beef up the suspension and I agree about the penalties surrounding the pit procedures. It is almost inexcusable that at race four there are still many that can not set a timer to 104 seconds. Pit speed limit, like the one Heidfeld got, is of course something that will always happen, but it should never take half a race to figure it out.

They should really, since this is supposed to be the future, have some automated penalties here. Transponders at pit entry and pit exit would tell the car (when it is set in "pit mode") that certain rules apply and it could immediately inform the team if it is going to fast and it can also start the 104 second timer (in the second car). If they have been speeding in pitlane, they could be allowed to clear the penalty by stopping for 20 seconds (for instance) in a penalty area at the pit exit. 

Apart from that there could also be a system that gives them slowdowns for various on track infringements (blinking lights at the back of the car could indicate the car will be on reduced power for 3-5 seconds before it is actually activated to warn drivers.

A drive through/stop&go is, in my opinion, usually a too big penalty since it takes the driver completely out of contention and that is not anything that adds to the excitement. Basically, going 2km/h too fast for 6 meters at the pit entry equals to crashing out.

 

Amen to that. 
Punishment is way too big compared to the fault committed, you're completely out of the race. 
I'm speaking for all motorsport categories, not only Formula E obviously. 

5 seconds added on the final time would be well enough imho. 

Edited by thegamer23, 12 January 2015 - 10:31.

[ExFlagMan]

A few penalties were handed out after the race - Duran was disqualified for exceeding the maximum allowed power whilst Piquet picked up a 5 place grid penalty at the next race for speeding under yellow flags and Trulli has a 10 place grid penalty for changing the gear box.

Perhaps someone might suggest that to the F1 stewards, rather than invent a stupid VSC situation!

[Nigol]

Amen to that. 
Punishment is way too big compared to the fault committed, you're completely out of the race. 
I'm speaking for all motorsport categories, not only Formula E obviously. 

5 seconds added on the final time would be well enough imho. 

 

Then again, it is a drive through for everyone.

 

Some driver might push less in order to not get penalised, others are braver and gain some time. And then there are some guys overdoing it. I think it's fair. The driver can make a difference here, it's his responsibility and very rewarding if done right.

Edited by Nigol, 12 January 2015 - 11:05.

[Imperial]

Another great race.

FE is surprising at this early stage, massively.

[STRFerrari4Ever]

Just watched the highlights video, so the DJ is actually an eJ, wonder what batteries he runs on, doubt it's Energizers but it energises him in a similar way 

 

Franchitti has been a joy to listen to in commentary.

[NoSanityClause]

Was watching free practice and when they describe the location of the track they say something along the lines of "To the left, you can see the city proper and to the right, the Atlantic Ocean"....well....actually that is the River Plate (Río de la Plata), which, broad as it might be, is still not exactly an ocean ;) You have to travel a further 90 miles southeast to reach the Atlantic Ocean, in case you were wondering.

 

This ends our Geography 101 class for now

Edited by NoSanityClause, 12 January 2015 - 22:23.

[thegamer23]

Cool fan videos!

[nosecone]

They are not fast, but they look fast.
F1 is very fast but look and sound slow and tired on TV. It is interesting to note that F1 has done everything wrong. Everything! They have a regulation that makes everyone involved except one singe man to lose money and they force the creation of tracks that is useless for anything else.
 

 

You're spot-on. While F1 is shot from a camera at the other side of the desert car-park, FE has cameras close to the track showing how close the cars are to the walls. The walls itself let FE appear fast. You don't feel the speed if there is a car driving between white lines on a tarmac desert. F1 has done it wrong in so many ways. Even though in some countries FE is only on pay-tv, I appreciate that FE is using the internet (streams for various countries) rather than blocking it. Also the ticket price seems appropriate or at least that's the impression i got from the large crowd at Buenos Aires. For it being just the 4th race of the series the crowd was huge. Well done! May it succeed!

[Imateria]

Can some one tell me how in this age of electronic transponders some can be marked a lap down by race control? I thought it was a bit strange to see Andretti a lap down after the safety car period, turns out he wasn't he was supposed to be around 4th/5th but RC screwed up.

[Prost1997T]

Can some one tell me how in this age of electronic transponders some can be marked a lap down by race control? I thought it was a bit strange to see Andretti a lap down after the safety car period, turns out he wasn't he was supposed to be around 4th/5th but RC screwed up.

He wasn't let past the SC when the leaders undercut it during their stops.

[Richard T]

Formula E will change the rear uprights ahead of Miami to prevent similar failures to what happened at Buenos Aires.

[eirwal]

You're spot-on. While F1 is shot from a camera at the other side of the desert car-park, FE has cameras close to the track showing how close the cars are to the walls. The walls itself let FE appear fast. You don't feel the speed if there is a car driving between white lines on a tarmac desert. F1 has done it wrong in so many ways. Even though in some countries FE is only on pay-tv, I appreciate that FE is using the internet (streams for various countries) rather than blocking it. Also the ticket price seems appropriate or at least that's the impression i got from the large crowd at Buenos Aires. For it being just the 4th race of the series the crowd was huge. Well done! May it succeed!

Ticket prices: Originally tickets went on sale for sums oscliating between roughly U$ 60 and U$ 550, expensive for the average Argentinian's purchasing power, specially considering that we're talking of an event that spans only a few hours (not the usual full weekend programme). Sales were a flop and at the last moment prices were dropped to around U$ 15, apart from which many tickets were given away gratis in an effort to ensure some kind of attendance.

The crowd: Was not huge. The most optimistic estimates spoke of ten thousand spectators, others put the figure somewhere around eight thousand; very poor figures for a car racing in Argentina. Perhaps the same cameras that made the cars look quick (Buemi's qualifying average was a paltry 125.7 Km/H) managed to make the crowd look larger.

[charly0418]

The problem is that street races are not very fun to watch live. When you go to a big track you can get a good seat that has a panoramic view that covers 2/3 corners, but when you go to a street race you get a seat which covers 1 corner, basically you get to see the cars for like 3 seconds. It really sucks

[thegamer23]

I've red various reports, including official ones, and all of them spoke about 20.000 spectators actually.

Edited by thegamer23, 13 January 2015 - 18:47.

[eirwal]

I am Argentine, follow the local racing scene fairly closely and therefore feel I can give a first hand impression of what happened here (even if I didn't attend the race). I can assure you that no Argentine independant media quoted a figure above ten thousand spectators; most spoke of "ten thousand" or "almost ten thousand" and some motoring Internet sites put the figure at "around eight thousand". I have the feeling that anyone who spoke of more was in some way associated or attached to the Formula E show (in our case, for instance, Fox Sports who ran the TV broadcast).

IF (big IF's) the race had had better build-up marketing/press promotion and IF the tickets had been originally priced accordingly to Argentinians purchasing power/limited race programme for your money (we are used to sometimes Friday and definitely Saturday/Sunday race meetings) the outcome might have been different. But even admitting an improbable twenty thousand spectators, that would still have been a flop for a street circuit in Buenos Aires. Our tin-top Super TC 2000 series has claimed over 500.000 (yes, five hundred, some sources even claimed seven hundred thou) spectators for a Buenos Aires street race, admitedly most non-paying. IMHO the marketing potential of a crowd that large is of much greater value than the cash you can make selling ten or twenty thousand tickets and that should be the way towards trying to make Formula E popular, specially when it's taking its first hesitant steps.

My conclusion: After looking at what Buenos Aires has done before, Agag missed out on the fantastic oportunity to get a car crazy country to provide him with the best backdrop possible for promoting his Scalextrics. A real pity!

[NoSanityClause]

I am Argentine, follow the local racing scene fairly closely and therefore feel I can give a first hand impression of what happened here (even if I didn't attend the race). I can assure you that no Argentine independant media quoted a figure above ten thousand spectators; most spoke of "ten thousand" or "almost ten thousand" and some motoring Internet sites put the figure at "around eight thousand". I have the feeling that anyone who spoke of more was in some way associated or attached to the Formula E show (in our case, for instance, Fox Sports who ran the TV broadcast).

IF (big IF's) the race had had better build-up marketing/press promotion and IF the tickets had been originally priced accordingly to Argentinians purchasing power/limited race programme for your money (we are used to sometimes Friday and definitely Saturday/Sunday race meetings) the outcome might have been different. But even admitting an improbable twenty thousand spectators, that would still have been a flop for a street circuit in Buenos Aires. Our tin-top Super TC 2000 series has claimed over 500.000 (yes, five hundred, some sources even claimed seven hundred thou) spectators for a Buenos Aires street race, admitedly most non-paying. IMHO the marketing potential of a crowd that large is of much greater value than the cash you can make selling ten or twenty thousand tickets and that should be the way towards trying to make Formula E popular, specially when it's taking its first hesitant steps.

My conclusion: After looking at what Buenos Aires has done before, Agag missed out on the fantastic oportunity to get a car crazy country to provide him with the best backdrop possible for promoting his Scalextrics. A real pity!

Like you said, the race was barely promoted and the first half of January is hardly the best time to attract huge crowds, media attention was almost nonexistant before the race, but aftewards it seems to have left a good impresion overall.

 

Free races sound like a good idea, the problem is that sooner or later they will have to charge for the tickets, and the numbers will drop as drastically as they drop anyways when moving from free Super TC or similar series races to paid ones. You can already watch the races for free on Youtube, which is as far from F1 business model as one can imagine. Let them take one risk at a time! 

 

Formula E has many things to improve, but none of them is specially catastrophic (except for the hideous music). Yes, not even fanboost, which, stupid as I find it, seems like an interesting experiment which, with some luck, will lead to more inteseting and less unbalancing ways for public to interact.

 

Sorry, sounding like a blind Formula E fan but to be honest, I love the idea and I enjoyed the races so far a lot.

[scheivlak]

 (Buemi's qualifying average was a paltry 125.7 Km/H) 

We have to remember that we're talking about a street circuit here 

 

When Stirling Moss won the Monaco GP in 1961 - one of the greatest performances of all time in motor racing according to not just a few people - he averaged 113.800 km/h and his Q pole lap was 114.248 km/h. 

 

We had to wait until 1967 to have a Monaco Q pole average of 129.246 km/h and even in 1977 the Monaco Q pole was 132.686 km/h.

 

We're told that FE  cars have a top speed of around 200 km/h. If so, a Q average of 125.7 km/h on a street circuit with chicanes and hairpins is pretty amazing to me!

[eirwal]

 

We have to remember that we're talking about a street circuit here 

 

When Stirling Moss won the Monaco GP in 1961 - one of the greatest performances of all time in motor racing according to not just a few people - he averaged 113.800 km/h and his Q pole lap was 114.248 km/h. 

 

We had to wait until 1967 to have a Monaco Q pole average of 129.246 km/h and even in 1977 the Monaco Q pole was 132.686 km/h.

 

We're told that FE  cars have a top speed of around 200 km/h. If so, a Q average of 125.7 km/h on a street circuit with chicanes and hairpins is pretty amazing to me!

 

I'm sorry, don't want to sound rude or pedantic but I feel that your argument is rather self-defeating. You take as an example a car from more than half a century ago, powered by a 1.5 litre engine producing somewhere around 150 HP, running on skinny little tyres and no aero aids, driven by perhaps the fastest of his day and use that yardstick to try to convince me of the Formula E's present day "prowess". Sorry, but I won't buy it.

I might add that I have a feeling that Monaco is probably rather more challenging (narrower, changes of camber and elevation, sunlight-darkness-sunlight, etc) than Buenos Aires (wide, flat, point and squirt layout) and therefore probably inherently slower.

Perhaps you're right when you say that 125.7  Km/H is a good average for a car with a 200 Km/H top speed. But you must admit that it's bog-slow for a pure bred race car. Our local 1.4 litre production saloons run above that speed on short-staighted, tight tracks and close to 215/220 on tracks with longer straights. The only way for Formula E to look quick is by judicious use of TV cameras (short, low zoom trackside, specially).

So, i'm not sold on these new gimicks but not bashing them outright either. Given some time and developement they might turn into a decent series. For the moment though they're a novelty held together by some agressive and rather unorthodox driving, more than anything else.