New Year, Back to Racing! [FormulaE 19/20, Santiago of Chile e-Prix]

Alexander Sims is a Man on a Mission right now.

The english BMW Factory driver set the last three pole positions & won his first ever Formula E race in Riyadh, projecting himself at the top of the drivers standings.

Very confident with the BMW equipment, super fast on the single lap, growing more solid in race trim.

Can the englishman be one to watch for the title quest?

Behind Sims, we find a stellar Stoffel Vandoorne, who carried Mercedes at the front in its FE debut. 

Sam Bird missed the opportunity to be the champ leader by clashing with Mitch Evans's Jaguar in Race 2, but the englishman looked fast all the time, winning Race 1 with a spectacular charge from the back. 

 

Guess what?
Mercedes leads the Constructors Championship after two races! 

A stellar debut for the German Manufacturer: Stoffel Vandoorne proved his worth with a double podium finish, and the debutant Nyck De Vries showed great flashes of speed already, despite the lack of running at the Valencia pre-season tests.

BUT, Riyadh is such a strange race. 
Its incredibly dusty track conditions, the flowing nature of the track, it's quite an unusual ride for Formula E standards. 

So. Can we expect Mercedes to be there fighting at the front in Santiago?
Or will they drop into the midfield as the more experienced teams starts getting their acts together? 

The other debutant, Porsche also impressed with Andrè Lotterer at the wheel. The German ace scored a podium in Race 1, but was thrown out of the points after a penalty in Race 2. 

Not a good return to Formula E by Neel Jani, who appeared off the pace by a worrying margin through the two day event.

Missed the first two events?
Not an excuse, as you can find the whole Riyadh double header on the FE YT Channel! 

No more silly chicanes, the 2020 version of the Parque o'Higgins, Santiago circuit will be FAST.
2.4 km circuit with only 10 turns! 

A reprofiled Corner 1-2 will allow more overtaking under braking, before the real fun begins!. 

From Turn 3 to Turn 8 it could be the fastest section of Formula E to date. 
Accelerating out of Turn 3, slight lift through T4, slight lift to the T6-7 bend, than a loooong curved straight ahead. 

Last season, there was a chicane in the middle of it.

This year the Gen 2 cars will flash through the section, before jumping into a very difficult braking zone of T8. 

Braking while turning, that's like HELL for the Formula E cars. Expect a lot of mistakes & lockups there.

Than the track slows down dramatically, with two 180° hairpins in Turn 9 & Turn 10. 
A good opportunity to recharge the batteries, before launching into the main straight once again!

This is an onboard from Last Season. Imagine it with the tweaks! 

Last season's race in Santiago was one of the highlights of the entire season!

A spectacular race, plenty of battle & an exciting three-way fight for the lead between Seb Buemi, Sam Bird & Pascal Wehrlein!

Only two of them survived the battle, but man it was good!

Only downside: the track surface started breaking up after a couple of laps. Hopefully this has been fixed!

Plenty of things to look forward to in Santiago:


- The New Track Layout

- Sims defending its leadership 

- Mercedes & Porsche looking for a confirmation of their potential
- Reigning Champ JEV wanting to bounce back after Riyadh's disaster

- A more accurate Pecking Order. 

TIMETABLE ------------

THIS SATURDAY!!
 

FP1 - 10:55 - 11:55 GMT  [YouTube,BBCiPlayer,Facebook,App]

FP2 - 13:10- 13:55 GMT [YouTube,BBCiPlayer,Facebook,App]

QP - 14.45 - 16.15 GMT [Eurosport,BBC Iplayer,BBC Website]
RACE - 19.00 GMT [Eurosport 1,BBC Iplayer,BBC Website]

Not in the UK?
Look for your local broadcast times here

https://www.fiaformu...&session=E-Prix

 

And may i add...

Best wishes for a complete recovery to the man, Bob Varsha. an iconic voice of Motorsport & a good friend of Formula E.

Get well soon legend!

Edited by thegamer23, 14 January 2020 - 10:42.

The track breaking up wasn't because of a problem with the track itself, it was because the temperature was well into the 40's. Hopefully a little cooler this year and the track should be fine.

Presumably the civil unrest has now abated?  Nothing in the media lately, but then, they lose interest in any story after a week or so.

No More Silly Chicanes - gets my vote for sure!  Now if  FE could steel themselves to get rid of the two silly hairpins and replace them with a nice fast wiggly section, we would be cooking on gas.  Or should that be electricity?

I think last year's Santiago was one of the best new venues we've had. Glad to see it back and seemingly improved upon. 

Yay! The wait is finally over 

Program starts at 6.00pm but I think the lights out will be at 7pm going by the Eurosport TV gudie. 1st race of 2020 for me to watch this year

Mahindra Race Posters never disappoints

Edited by thegamer23, 14 January 2020 - 10:44.

Program starts at 6.00pm but I think the lights out will be at 7pm going by the Eurosport TV gudie. 1st race of 2020 for me to watch this year

Indeed man, just updated it!

Race Start at 19.00 GMT on Saturday!   

 

Santiago was probably my favourite race from last season, really looking forward to this years, especially with the new layout.

Oh, and to nit pick the name spellings on the leaderboard, it's Muller, Wehrlein and Ma Qing Hua (Ma being the family name).

Virtual Ride on the New Layout

https://twitter.com/...085658348519425


Turn 1 is also more interesting than expected, quite a quick approach to it. 

Back straight looks like around 12-13 seconds of full "throttle". 

Don't think we ever saw a FE over 235 km/h. This may well be a new top speed record. 

Edited by thegamer23, 14 January 2020 - 14:48.

Is anyone going down to London for the race? I went to Battersea Park but found the viewing platforms to be rubbish so I'm pleased it's a new venue.

After spending some time last year trying to find out (in vain) when tickets would be available, I checked today and there are only four seats still on offer, for Saturday only. As far as can be determined from the map, the viewing from all grandstands looks, shall we say, "unpromising". All spectator stands are in the shed with limited views. The potentially interesting part of the circuit is hidden outdoors. The pricing is a lot less than F1, but more than we pay for BTCC or F3/GT combined, at one of the UK's many excellent circuits.

So yes, I'll be in London, because that's where my telly is.

Mahindra Race Posters never disappoints

 

 

It disappoints me,  It's dreadful.

After spending some time last year trying to find out (in vain) when tickets would be available, I checked today and there are only four seats still on offer, for Saturday only. As far as can be determined from the map, the viewing from all grandstands looks, shall we say, "unpromising". All spectator stands are in the shed with limited views. The potentially interesting part of the circuit is hidden outdoors. The pricing is a lot less than F1, but more than we pay for BTCC or F3/GT combined, at one of the UK's many excellent circuits.

 

So yes, I'll be in London, because that's where my telly is.

Thanks for that info Sterzo-was thinking of planning a trip but will not now bother

London is nearly sold out? And it's a little over 6 months to the race? 

Well I never. 

Edited by thegamer23, 14 January 2020 - 18:53.

London is nearly sold out? And it's a little over 6 months to the race? 

 

Well I never. 

It's possible they may release more blocks of seats as we got closer to the event but even so... not bad going I suppose.

It's possible they may release more blocks of seats as we got closer to the event but even so... not bad going I suppose.

What I was getting at was that when FE started so many said that 'no one would go to watch this'... they still do say it actually. 

Edited by Ben1445, 14 January 2020 - 20:18.

From the ABB FE twitter

"Introducing #DriversEye  - an exciting new immersive way to experience Formula E like never before!"

https://twitter.com/...174547599781888


Sounds big!
 

"It’s gonna change the game. Bring on Saturday"

The quick glimpise of Felipe Massa driver's eye was interesting. Will we get more of them during the race?
 

Driver's eye cameras are hardly new, I'm sure CART had them in the late 90s? And IndyCar today has top mounted helmet cams. But they're still not exactly the norm... 

I'll be interested to see how FE plans to integrate this into their broadcast. 

Yeah CART was using cameras inside the driver's helmet back in the early 2000s.

It's possible they may release more blocks of seats as we got closer to the event but even so... not bad going I suppose.

Yes, and I hope people who want to go do their own research and don't rely on me. Perhaps there are tickets available through other sources.

One question is: how many seats are there? My estimate (based on the plan of stand 3 on the FIA website) is the total number for all stands is around 5000. That compares with a claimed 40,000 at the best attended BTCC meetings, and a spectator capacity of 60,000 plus at nearby Brands Hatch. Maybe selling out is not such an achievement after all.

Formula E is great, love it, but as with all series there are some aspects which could do with improving.

Yes, and I hope people who want to go do their own research and don't rely on me. Perhaps there are tickets available through other sources.

 

One question is: how many seats are there? My estimate (based on the plan of stand 3 on the FIA website) is the total number for all stands is around 5000. That compares with a claimed 40,000 at the best attended BTCC meetings, and a spectator capacity of 60,000 plus at nearby Brands Hatch. Maybe selling out is not such an achievement after all.

 

Formula E is great, love it, but as with all series there are some aspects which could do with improving.

Yes, I want to know this too.

My estimate for the interior stands was around 7,500 so a bit higher but same order of magitude. I will add that this is only for the stands put up around the start/finish pit/paddock section of the track. It's kind of why I thought we might see extra stands added, especially if the have in fact sold out the indoor stands. I would have thought that some outside space could accomodate a stand or two around the east car park section of track. If ticket demand really is there and this early on then you would have thought they will add more.

There's also the eVillage only tickets to consider, which are not all that dissimilar from general admission tickets other than at some FE venues you don't get a terribly good view of the track. Unclear what ExCeL's eVillage track viewing will be like but there might be a view down onto the back section north of the building. But even so eVillage ticket sales would count towards race day track attendance figures.

Virtual Ride on the New Layout

https://twitter.com/...085658348519425

Turn 1 is also more interesting than expected, quite a quick approach to it. 

Back straight looks like around 12-13 seconds of full "throttle". 

Don't think we ever saw a FE over 235 km/h. This may well be a new top speed record. 

Looks pretty good! Can't wait to see how it races.

Defintely more flowy than before. I do think this venue has a lot of potential if they keep coming back and refining it. It feels like an old CART venue of sorts.

Which, with that CART video above, reminds me that I would love to see FE go to Long Beach again.
 

Image here of the second hairpin of the new layout:

(https://twitter.com/...791776616505347)

Which looks to have a much longer radius on the apex than these needle-thin things from last year

Indeed, looks quite more open. 
All positive!   

Looks good 

Circuit lap fly-over visualisation 

https://streamable.com/7arqk

A clear step forward from last season! 
Just the removal of the chicane alone is a massive one.

T1 will be difficult to overtake tho! 

Tomorrow it's Shakedown time already!     

I'll be off all day, so if someone manages to pick the Shakedown's Live Streaming tomorrow, would be great to post it here! 
Should be around 6-7 GMT

Edited by thegamer23, 16 January 2020 - 19:33.

A clear step forward from last season! 
Just the removal of the chicane alone is a massive one.

T1 will be difficult to overtake tho! 

Tomorrow it's Shakedown time already!     

I'll be off all day, so if someone manages to pick the Shakedown's Live Streaming tomorrow, would be great to post it here! 
Should be around 6-7 GMT

I don't think overtaking into t1 will be a problem, making it stick through t2 will be though.

Looking at those videos I'm wondering if we'll get a situation like Diriyah with that T1-2 complex in that the track boundary becomes governed more by the physical walls than the painted lines.

Circuit lap fly-over visualisation

https://streamable.com/7arqk

T-minus 2 hours to the shakedown

Looking at those videos I'm wondering if we'll get a situation like Diriyah with that T1-2 complex in that the track boundary becomes governed more by the physical walls than the painted lines.

Turns out you were absolutely right 

Verrrry dusty track

Overall I really like the track. Some great improvmenets on last year as well as keeping the good features. Only thing I don't like is T10 which still seems a bit too tight.

Edited by Vielleicht, 17 January 2020 - 20:37.

After spending some time last year trying to find out (in vain) when tickets would be available, I checked today and there are only four seats still on offer, for Saturday only. As far as can be determined from the map, the viewing from all grandstands looks, shall we say, "unpromising". All spectator stands are in the shed with limited views. The potentially interesting part of the circuit is hidden outdoors. The pricing is a lot less than F1, but more than we pay for BTCC or F3/GT combined, at one of the UK's many excellent circuits.

So yes, I'll be in London, because that's where my telly is.

Edited by jonpollak, 17 January 2020 - 22:13.

Edited by thegamer23, 18 January 2020 - 00:10.

Yeah!

- 1.30 h to FP1! 

One day, one race, one winner. Late predictions?   
 

Edited by thegamer23, 18 January 2020 - 09:28.

Quali groups for later today

1

1. Alexander Sims
2. Stoffel Vandoorne
3. Sam Bird
4. Oliver Rowland
5. Lucas di Grassi
6. André Lotterer

2

1. Edoardo Mortara
2. Robin Frijns
3. Nyck De Vries
4. Daniel Abt
5. James Calado
6. Jean-Eric Vergne

3

1. Antonio Felix Da Costa
2. Brendon Hartley
3. Jerome D’Ambrosio
4. Mitch Evans
5. Pascal Wehrlein
6. Maximilian Günter

4 

1. Felipe Massa
2. Sebastien Buemi
3. Neel Jani
4. Oliver Turvey
5. Ma Qing Hua
6. Nico Müller

Edited by thegamer23, 18 January 2020 - 10:21.

FP1 stream:

I've just realized the family have plans for me for tonight, I'll have to renew my ES Player subscription in the end (I hate the new UI, it's been buggy as hell).

Edited by balage06, 18 January 2020 - 10:24.

FP1 LIVE NOW

The camera work + the mic placement in the fast section is just awesome. 

Driver's Eye is awesome