FIA Formula E Championship 2014-15

[skells22]

Want did Abt do wrong?

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by skells22

Want did Abt do wrong?

Apparently he ran over an "energy limit" sometime during the race, hence the time penalty. That was a very quick decision I must say.

[wolfhound]

With Buemi in the pits for repairs I wonder could he have used his second car while the first was been fixed and then change back later in the race?

[Nikki Katz]

I'm not going to read this thread yet as I don't know the result yet, but just heard them say that there's a fan vote-in during the race and it gives the top few drivers from that result an extra boost of power. That's flippin ridiculous.

[grantp]

Why not make full use of social media and have people interactively voting for drivers/teams to receive bonus/penalty adjustments during the race?

Anyone with a net minus score greater than 100 has to stop and take a selfie with the most senior FIA official at the track.

Could vote on car failures too. Something like having a 5% reduction in available power for minus 50 net plus a further 5% for every additional 50 whilst the score lasts.

Or maybe 1000 minus votes implies braking system failure ... that sort of thing.

The potential for worldwide real time engagement must be huge.

[JoestForEver]

Been to the track today. Couple of points to make only because I won't go to a ePrix anymore.
(1)The track is utterly rubbish. Yes it's beautiful on the TV onboard, but the turns are way too tight to allow wheel to wheel racing.

(2)I was at the bus stop section for the most of the race, which is literally the only place where you are close enough to the track. All the rest of the track is just miles and miles away from the audience. It feels like watching a electric train come and go for 25 times. Track feels like a tarmac parking lot with post-Olympic ruins.(The bird's nest is covered with dust! They don't even bother to clean it and every where inside the track is under construction for god knows what crap.)

(3) Vip system is confusing. There were checkpoints almost every metre in the eVillage with more than 20 types of pass shown on the instructions board. Security PMCs in "Control" jacket or grey uniform are ridiculous. They seems to be angry at everyone for no reason, yelling and pushing the fans.

(4)No thing to see, nothing to drink, nothing to eat in the village.

(5)Car number totally invisible. The only thing you can see is, ah, Venturi coming. Which one? No idea.

(6)Nice track marshalls anyway, been talking to one who has been at Le Mans for 30 years. Enjoyed it a lot.

[Nikki Katz]

Wow at the coverage. The presenter just said that a Prost hadn't been on pole since 1963...

[Burp]

I enjoyed the race. It was quite a good start to the series. Although some bad points

1, the warm up lap was pointless. Everyone going so slow, no burnout or other spectacle

2, the camera angle from the grandstand made them look so slow, best not to use that

3, fan boost. Err, did anyone actually use it? No way of knowing

Looking forward to round 2. Gutted for Heidfeld, real shocking move by Prost

[Nikki Katz]

Really weird accident at the end, glad everyone's ok!

The race was... ok... On the plus side they've got a really talented group of drivers (well, aside from Prost's last lap move and the inclusion of a few backmarkers). It just seems like a shame that they have to race these cars, which don't seem to go particularly fast and make a really irritating whining noise that the DJ can't drown out. Maybe they could attach a speaker to each car that emits a petrol engine noise? The laps behind the pace car also seemed to be about 20 mph, so I needed a lot of coffee to stay awake through that bit.

[wolfhound]

Originally Posted by JoestForEver

Been to the track today. Couple of points to make only because I won't go to a ePrix anymore.
(1)The track is utterly rubbish. Yes it's beautiful on the TV onboard, but the turns are way too tight to allow wheel to wheel racing.

(2)I was at the bus stop section for the most of the race, which is literally the only place where you are close enough to the track. All the rest of the track is just miles and miles away from the audience. It feels like watching a electric train come and go for 25 times. Track feels like a tarmac parking lot with post-Olympic ruins.(The bird's nest is covered with dust! They don't even bother to clean it and every where inside the track is under construction for god knows what crap.)

(3) Vip system is confusing. There were checkpoints almost every metre in the eVillage with more than 20 types of pass shown on the instructions board. Security PMCs in "Control" jacket or grey uniform are ridiculous. They seems to be angry at everyone for no reason, yelling and pushing the fans.

(4)No thing to see, nothing to drink, nothing to eat in the village.

(5)Car number totally invisible. The only thing you can see is, ah, Venturi coming. Which one? No idea.

(6)Nice track marshalls anyway, been talking to one who has been at Le Mans for 30 years. Enjoyed it a lot.

They are going to Monaco next May where they know a thing or two about running a motor race and it is also a much more interesting track. I suspect most of the later venues should be a lot better than Bejing.

[Nikki Katz]

Originally Posted by grantp

Why not make full use of social media and have people interactively voting for drivers/teams to receive bonus/penalty adjustments during the race?

Anyone with a net minus score greater than 100 has to stop and take a selfie with the most senior FIA official at the track.

Could vote on car failures too. Something like having a 5% reduction in available power for minus 50 net plus a further 5% for every additional 50 whilst the score lasts.

Or maybe 1000 minus votes implies braking system failure ... that sort of thing.

The potential for worldwide real time engagement must be huge.

Hehehe! I remember at the Wheldon memorial race you could make donations to penalise your opponents, but that was a charity race in jest, I never thought they'd do something like that in an actual competitive race!

[ScotsBrutesFan]

Itv will have to improve what it's doing from a studio. A full hour of every other word being "new". We know it's all new, what we need to know is more about the practice sessions, and the a proper qualifying report.

The world feed broadcaster needs to utilise camera positions which give a sense of speed. There needs to be effectively a second production unit covering the pits, providing images to be used side by side during the pitstops.

The telemetry graphic contained lots of info, just a pity none of was explained, and the fact that parts of it changed size was distracting. A tower graphic is a must, we saw one briefly which I hoped would have showed who was in the pit and whether places were made up or lost but disappeared before it could be used.

And please for gads sake, get rid of the background baseline and drum beat from the warm up lap, replays and even the safety car period

Horrible crash in the end, sausage kerbs hit from the wrong angle lifting cars needs to be looked at in general. At least we know the cars can crash like that and still be electrically safe, though it didn't look as though the marshals were to keen to touch the car until the driver was releasing himself and dropped to the ground.

[canamman]

Well history is made and Formula E is off and running.
I test drove a Tesla a couple weeks ago and I think that's
the correct direction.

Glad Nick is ok. That could of been bad. Hindsight, Prost maybe
should have let Heidfield take the inside and do a crossover
at the apex. I don't think Heidfield would have held the race line
with how far inside he was lined up for the apex.

[Moneyseeker]

Not sure about the whole pitstop changing cars thing. To me it would have been better to have 2 races with a better judged lap distance that made the preserving/using energy the tactical element, rather than trying to have a sort of pitstop that teams might use tactically.

Cars looked quicker from in car than the long shot on camera, apparently at the Donny test they were current FFord pace on laptime.

I look forward to the next one to see how it develops.

[chillibowl]

Job well done by everyone I think to get this series going. Last lap accident and more importantly Nick walking away for it might have just saved/made this series.

Looking forward to the next race.

Frank Montagny is kind of a wacky guy...think I'll throw a vote his way next time.

[Lanky Turtle]

I watched the live broadcast on FS1 and a few points about that and the series:
The audio seemed all out of whack. The announcers were very hard to hear as the ambient sound was turned up very loud so it was very easy to hear the cars which sound exactly like remote control cars you would drive around in your driveway. Generic techno music was played almost constantly during the race including the start and first lap which was very annoying. Sometimes it would stop for a minute and I was provided with a sense of relief, but then it would start back up in a couple minutes. It was like music they would play when cutting to a commercial break, only it played for at least half the race.

And speaking of commercial breaks, the announcers Dario Franchitti and Jack Nicholls obviously were commenting for a world feed and had no idea when they would be cutting away to a commercial, so when they did cut away it would be right in the middle of the commentators talking, and when they came back from the commercials they would be in the middle of a sentence.

The track design was terrible, even for a street course. Literally just tight 90 degree turns and chicanes.

The racing was actually decent and the cars seemed to be pretty reliable. I didn't hear them mention the fanboost once the race started so I don't know if that came into play at all. Obviously not for Senna who was out on lap 1.

Prost led the whole race pretty handily until the last turn. It was a bit of a divebomb by Heidfeld but to be expected at that point in the race I guess. Prost later took responsibility after seeing the video replays. And to think these guys are teamed in the same car next week in Austin! Glad Heidfeld was ok after going upside down into the barriers. It was a "softwall" of sorts but I'm sure it's not soft if you hit your head on it so that seemed like a close call.

Not sure what the fan turnout was. There was a decent sized grandstand on the front straight and smaller ones in a couple turns from what I could see, but I can't imagine there was more than 10,000 people there from what it looked like on tv.

[Lanky Turtle]

Originally Posted by JoestForEver

Been to the track today. Couple of points to make only because I won't go to a ePrix anymore.
(1)The track is utterly rubbish. Yes it's beautiful on the TV onboard, but the turns are way too tight to allow wheel to wheel racing.

(2)I was at the bus stop section for the most of the race, which is literally the only place where you are close enough to the track. All the rest of the track is just miles and miles away from the audience. It feels like watching a electric train come and go for 25 times. Track feels like a tarmac parking lot with post-Olympic ruins.(The bird's nest is covered with dust! They don't even bother to clean it and every where inside the track is under construction for god knows what crap.)

(3) Vip system is confusing. There were checkpoints almost every metre in the eVillage with more than 20 types of pass shown on the instructions board. Security PMCs in "Control" jacket or grey uniform are ridiculous. They seems to be angry at everyone for no reason, yelling and pushing the fans.

(4)No thing to see, nothing to drink, nothing to eat in the village.

(5)Car number totally invisible. The only thing you can see is, ah, Venturi coming. Which one? No idea.

(6)Nice track marshalls anyway, been talking to one who has been at Le Mans for 30 years. Enjoyed it a lot.

Hopefully they get some of these things sorted for the next races. I'm sure some of it is unique to the setup in China. I can't imagine Long Beach would have these sorts of problems for example. I plan on checking the Miami round out so I hope that turns out good. Did it seem pretty crowded there from your standpoint? Was there any way to see the cars up close, like an open paddock?

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

I'm sure Montagny will get a fan boost, and perhaps Heidfeld out of sympathy...

[Burp]

It doesn't matter that they are slow. It's a start of a new series and next season when they open up the regs should get interesting. I didn't like the pit stops either. Maybe 2 13 lap races would of been better with half points for each. Maybe we'd of see more action then

[ivanalesi]

I watched the replay and to me the most annoying thing was the background music. Especially on the warm up lap. So they have to improve a lot the broadcasts, but it's expected when you want to do such a big operation. The camera work was actually impressive, it was just technical issues they had.
The race itself was fun, I liked it a lot with some great overtaking. The pitstop times were missing, which made them all look odd.
It's a shame what Prost did, but at least it will create extra buzz for the series.
I thought it would be much worse, because the cars are pretty slow.

[Paradise City]

I saw parts of the broadcast this morning. The on-track action was very worthy. But it didn't seem conspicuously more thrilling than any other single seater series out there. I was completely non-plussed by them swapping cars for example. I suppose the drivers managing the charge was the most uniquely intriguing thing there was for the TV viewer.

I would expect studios to be more relaxed and easy-going than trackside presentations. But the opposite is typically the case. Whether it's Sky, ITV4 or BT Sports studio presentation is often stilted and cold whereas pitlane presentation is generally more relaxed and easy going.

Jennie Gow gushed alot. It's like being addressed by a children's TV presenter. I know her brief is to engage viewers who might not be racing fans - and I get that - but I find being talked down to as if I'm a 12 year old particularly aggravating. She should look at Nicole Briscoe on ESPN; who weds enthusiasm and maturity to deliver a comfortable presentation.

I'll be an irregular viewer as the voting stuff really winds me up but it'll be interesting to see how the series develops and the multi-chassis stuff plays out.

[JoestForEver]

Originally Posted by Lanky Turtle

Hopefully they get some of these things sorted for the next races. I'm sure some of it is unique to the setup in China. I can't imagine Long Beach would have these sorts of problems for example. I plan on checking the Miami round out so I hope that turns out good. Did it seem pretty crowded there from your standpoint? Was there any way to see the cars up close, like an open paddock?

Majority of the tickets were send out for free by related sponsors and most of the people there were casual fans who are just new to motorsport. As you can see from the live feed some even start to scream at the formation lap rather than the actual race. Hard to say it's a good thing or bad thing, but it does show the effort to make this championship "cool" worked out well.

There were checkpoints outside of the Olympics Park, outside the whole paddock area, outside the pit garage, and outside the Emotion Formula E club. If you want to have a close look at the cars and talk to drivers, arrive on Friday and borrow a "Service/Media" jacket and a Crew permit from some volunteers of your acquaintance. That worked for me.

Madhindra, China racing(campos in fact aren't they?), Abt, Venturi are the most friendly teams IMO.

[Razzzor]

Didn't get to watch the first race, but looking at the results boy I'm glad I didn't place any bets, because I would have been way off.

Senna, Bird, Buemi, Alguersuari, maybe Heidfeld were who I would have picked to be at the front. Certainly not Prost, Di Grassi, Abt, Montagny, Chandhok. Although I see Bird up there in the end, after others broke down.

Hopefully I'll get to see the next race.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

To be honest, everything went wrong for Buemi, and I'd expect to see him near the front at Putrajaya.

[JohnD]

"Pitstop times were missing"

The commentators said that "in the interest of safety" pitstops were set at 50 seconds, with the car being held (in the outlane?) if released before that. So no point in ultrafast car changes, although that didn't stop Bird jumping and running, and no point in posting the times.

"Prost took responsibility"
He knew that Heidfeld was right behind him; he looked right, and then turned left! At best it was reckless defence of the inside line, at worst it was "Take him out at any cost!" Prost Senior's face was a picture - memories of Sazuka, 1989 and 1990?

"At least we know the cars can crash like that and still be electrically safe"
I've marshaled at the TT when they had the TT Zero - marshal posts were issued with enormous yellow gloves and bolt cutters to disconnect the batteries in case of a crash - yes, were were a bit nervous, but no need to use them.

JOhn