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Anyone seen the race?
Cars look silly. Looks slow. Car change is a bit of a joke.
Last lap of the first race 😯
Really, really poor move.
Looked very slow, circuit was tight but from the graphics it looked like the top speed was around 160km/h?!
Nicholas Prost needs a ban for that move! Heidfeld was very close to broken neck.
Sound is just odd, which I found made then look slower than they actually were. Noise was very 'Scalextrix'.
Commentary was also very lacklustre. They didn't really sound very enthusiastic.
Don't like the 'fenders' on the cars
I'm sure it will improve though.
heidfeld was very forgiving about what was a balatant [ and dangerous ] crash
Not even a racing incident that one
I hope lewis and his mate were not watching it 😉
Was a very violent crash. you can see Prost checking his right hand mirror but surely he was not expecting Heidfeld to pass on his right and should have checked his left. Stupid, stupid thing to do and threw away everything. I thought Heidfeld was going to smack him or at least drag him over to the wrecked car.
On a safety note the car seems to have protected him well but it has broken up quite badly. I guess they are built quite light so that big heavy and strong battery where an engine normally is has an effect on how it flips over and breaks up.
I saw some of the first test session at Donington
They are faster than appear on TV
Suppose tight street courses don't do the cars justice
I quite enjoyed it though second Prosts move sheer dangerous lunacy
I see Prost Snr is declaring Heidfelds move a suicide one! He never changes.
Just watched it again and I think it was a case of Prost Jnr looking in his right hand mirror. Heidfeld making a good strong and safe move up the inside and then Prost Jnr realising and reacting thinking he can close the door but Heidfeld was already completely level. Inexperience and stupidy from Prost me thinks.
Bet Heidfeld wishes he hadn't bothered now though.
Race cars always seem slower on TV. I quite like the sound they make. Sound like big RC cars.
100% Prost to blame.
Roll on the London race.
Full Power on these cars is only 270bhp; so about a third of F1. No wonder it isn't quite as speedy.
It's a step in a more 'friendly' direction. Might be worth a watch in London next year, though. Boris will be sick he can't get them for the congestion charge.
Just watched that crash, mental!
Was a bit disappointed when Heidfeld ran after Prost, was kind of hoping he was going to crack him over the head with his lid and it then break out into a fist fight.
It's not for me
I saw the TT Zero race and wanted to like that, I've now watched the Formula E and wanted to like that too.
Both failed for me.
When the viewers can vote for some of the drivers to get a power boost it just shouts Mickey Mouse event.
Watched the first 3 laps and found the noise too annoying!
found the noise too annoying
They gave it a soundtrack too FFS
It's the future so get used to it.
The current token hybrid F1 cars are just as wasteful as before.
I don't think Heidfeld would have made that corner. That said Prost shouldn't have turned in on him.
Smart move would have been to let him shoot through and either let him slide wide and run off or get a tighter line and power down earlier up the inside.
Looked slow on telly, and changing into a new car just demonstrates how little mileage each battery charge gives you, and still only 25 lap races.
quite liked the transmission noise. Last lap crash was mental, agree that Prost needs his wrist slapped. How many ex F1 drivers in the line-up though?!!
It's the future so get used to it.
I'm fairly confident I'll see my days out still being able to smell and hear petrol being burned in an internal combustion engine being raced.
Failed f1 drivers more like.
I'm fairly confident I'll see my days out still being able to smell and hear petrol being burned in an internal combustion engine being raced.
Did you think F1 cars would be hybrids 10 years ago?
All significant R&D money by major car companies is going into EV's. When the public are driving around in EV's for a few years combustion engines in motorsport will start to look like a crude joke.
It's like seeing a big Audi or BMW chugging along and then a Tesla glides by. The bottomline performance is irrelevant, one is obviously the future and the others aren't.
The current token hybrid F1 cars are just as wasteful as before.
Have you any idea how much more efficient this years engines are compared to the old ones. And they're going to get better over the next couple of seasons.
Isn't fuel consumption something like 2/3rds last year now or something?
Off the top of my head, last years cars had about 160kg of fuel for the race, this year it's 100kg
The race times aren't wildly different.
Have you any idea how much more efficient this years engines are compared to the old ones. And they're going to get better over the next couple of seasons.
I meant the Formula in general. Regardless, the trickle down from Motorsport argument was always a joke. To implement such complex technology into mass production simply isn't feasible.
EV battery efficiency will double in five years. As a BMW engineer said recently, if you were going to design cars from scratch right now they wouldn't have combustion engines.
I meant the Formula in general. Regardless, the trickle down from Motorsport argument was always a joke. To implement such complex technology into mass production simply isn't feasible.
You're aware Volvo are putting KERS style electric systems in to cars for extra power boost and things like that.
1.6 Turbo engines in the F1 cars are bound to bring turbo and combustion efficiencies to the bog standard 1.6 turbo world. Yes it won't happen over night but it will happen. I'm sure people used to say road cars won't be made of carbon fibre.
For those that haven't seen the final corner 'coming together' between Heidfield & Prost
double post
The current token hybrid F1 cars are just as wasteful as before
Link to that statement please?
The old NA F1 engines were very efficient in terms of HP generated per litre of engine displacement, they just burnt a lot of fuel 🙂
The new engines are already exceeding efficiency expectations, teams race with approx 90kg of fuel, below where the FIA expected them to be. The FIA will reduce the max fuel load in the next few years, as the engines recover more energy (and are allowed to use more ERS per lap)
As for the Formula E, i was massively underwhelmed. Slow, sounded awful (thought i had mice in my living room) and the drivers swapping cars / Fan boost diminish the credibility of the event. I know F1 is losing market share with the younger demographics so the FIA are trying to find new ways of appealing to "the yoof".....but fan boost!? Really! Next they'll be issuing double points for the final race of the.... 🙄
Watched the Prost Junior interview - like father like son. What a c***.
They did look pretty pedestrian but we are used to damn fast cars in the same format so prob not the best comparison.
It's early days yet and that excuses having to go to the crowds via city centre street races and the short races as the battery tech doesn't yet exist but the gimmicks are just daft. It's like they're from Bernie's "let's spice up F1" rejection pile.
Burning dinosaurs or solarz, probably makes very little difference to the actual polluting effect of a travelling race series, flying the teams, officials and cars around the world has got to outweigh it surely?
I think given the performance of the cars, what's really required to make it interesting is John Cleland in a Vauxhall Cavalier, right in the middle of the pack.
I think given the performance of the cars, what's really required to make it interesting is John Cleland in a Vauxhall [s]Cavalier[/s] [u]Electra[/u], right in the middle of the pack.
Come on, keep up NW.
Haha, I wonder what the pace of a touring car from the mid nineties would be compared to the E cars.
I think slower initially, but it'd gain an advantage once none of the formula E cars have any wheels
Overall I liked it other than the "fan boost" bollocks but perhaps my expectations were a little lower than others, obviously it's not going to kick off on a par with F1 or any of the other petrol formulas.
It needs refining and whatnot but it is race one of season one, nothing is ever perfect from the very start...
I think what I'd like to see most of all for their second season would have to be races on proper circuits, this starting season is all street circuits, I understand why, the whole "Bringing a new spectacle to the people" thing, but I think it would benefit from being raced on race circuits rather than closed roads.
I'd also like it if they had to change battery packs rather than swapping cars, or plugging the buggers in for a charge, obviously they can't carry sufficient juice for a reasonable length race run yet, but in the same way that refuelling was one of the differentiators for teams in F1 I sort of like the idea that a slick battery change could become a race winner/loser, Forces them to develop the kit towards that end too.
It's really not worth getting caught up on incidentals like the sound, or the speed of the cars relative to the gas guzzlers, it's a different sport, what really matters is the racing between comparable cars and their drivers, who's able to judge corner speeds, braking points, make passes stick etc...
I would like to see them move from a single specification formula to manufacturers working within a governance framework in the not too distant future, at the minute Formula E is more akin to F4 Really, but they have to get the ball rolling somehow and single spec' gets the racing started...
Next year the rules are opened to allow development of the cars. And they're looking to develop to battery changes rather than car changes.
Definitely looks too slow though but maybe that doesn't matter if they're not looking to get the F1 audience.
Yay!
It's like they were listening to me before I even thought about it...
It was never going to be as sexy as F1 from day one, but I don't think it's meant to be...
Battery changes will be fantastic fun to watch, I fully expect the odd team to fluff it early on and have a car trundle out of the pit lane with a loose battery pack...
Competitive development of motors could also be a major thing, how will they govern that in the absence of cylinders? limited current? fixed number of coils/amount of copper?
Standard ECU and limited current I expect - same as F1 basically to prevent lift and coast issues.
Plenty of regulations about racing electric vehicles in the RC world. Wouldn't do any harm for the powers that be to read through the various regulations for those world and national series.
Battery changes are going to be interesting given the packs currently form part of the chassis. Any solution is likely to add weight to the cars.
Yeah, battery changes are a way off at the moment.
cookeaaCompetitive development of motors could also be a major thing, how will they govern that in the absence of cylinders? limited current? fixed number of coils/amount of copper?
Thing is, the "motor" is not the issue. The current motor in the Formula E series is already very efficient (around 99% at peak power!!) so, even with an enormous and costly move to something ridiculous like using a superconducting motor, there is only a 1% power advantage to be had!
The issue is more in the battery pack/inverter and the cooling of the system to enable a high continuous load to utilised (unlike a conventional engine, the system gets loaded during both acceleration AND braking).
Ultimately, limiting the maximum system voltage limits system power in much the same way as the old F1 rev limit did.