There's either some typos here, or just bad writing.
The speed record for Formula 1 looks to be 231.4 mph, so the E top speed looks to be pretty close. That's cool! I wonder if we'll see the top races turn into electric at some point.
It’s incredibly fun in VR.
It isn't many of us ran canyons as a lead up to track days to dial in our suspension or engine maps ahead of time attacks, and just as another poster mentioned: you ignore it entirely when you're in the zone.
You're looking at your own lines, and making your own braking points which often require you go wide (on to oncoming traffic) to make an apex in a high gear and have a higher exit speed etc...
In short, normal day-driving has almost no bearing on how you drive in anger in the canyons or the track. I drive like an old man on the street and seldom speed, but once the helmet goes on I'm a full contact driver and I will block pass and push you wide off the track to make an apex on the track without a second thought.
I was getting too aggressive at the K1 racetrack on my bday one year, I had just assumed people had done track days before and the marshals eventually let me run alone on the track to set a best flying lap because I was forcing people into dangerous situations, which to me is a part of racing: forcing people into mistakes is a critical part of race-craft. And if you go over your limit and you crash those are just racing incidents at the end of the day.
I think I held a Top 10 lap record for most of that year at that location.
As for reminiscing about F1 I think the hybrid era has yielded the most monotonous era on F1 history; which is saying a lot where 5 on track overtakes was considered an exciting race before that. Mercedes/HAM domination is about as compelling as the Redbull/Vettel era but with way more boring engines (they had V8s back then).
I was in Maranello the last season right before the v6 hybrid era and I could hear them testing the V6s F1 engines in the factory and then heard it on the track Fiorano. They sounded pathetic to even the street version V8s and I knew it was an end of an era.
Luckily, I got to see the LaFerrari prototype with its crazy hybrid-V8 get tested out on the canyons up Torre Maina which was a remarkable experience. They always say that when Ferrari sucks in F1 is when their Strada division makes it's best cars.
Either way, I think the Senna/Prost days in manual Turbo V6s was cool but way over valued, to me the pinnacle will always be the V10 era. Seeing that BMW V10 in the Williams screaming at near 20K RPM was insanity [0]! I know the V8s and even the V10s are faster around a track, but these engines were over a 1000HP in qualy trim, and the sound alone was what made the racing back then.
So let me show you what it is and how common a tactic it is to ensure an overtake sticks [0]. Here is a breakdown of the anatomy of what a blockpass is and how it's used to hold the racing line:
Racer Training Technique #1. Block Pass
A. get close to rider in front
B. brake same time or after rider in front
C. remove some brake pressure to get side by side
D. hold position side by side while continuing to brake evenly with other ride. (don't pass in-front.. as it opens up a possible re-pass if you run wide)
E. enter corner holding the inside line ftw!
It is a legitimate overtaking technique.
This video on the 'art of passing' is also worth watching to see what I had described earlier [1], at 0.55 you see what a blockpass looks like on track and that is what forces a driver wide off the racing line and makes him loss time by going wide, which is an entirely legitimate racing technique.
Kelvin describes it rather well and shows how you can execute it best and still drive cleanly.
PS: I used to drive when I was younger but I also marshaled and did scrutineering at Time Attacks, and Open lap track days be it with SCCA sanctioned events or otherwise when I got older and sustained too many injuries and got slower.
There is a saying amongst the experienced veterans: Racing is a full contact sport, and rubbing is racing.
I realize safety is important, however I think just as much safety can be achieved if drivers respect yellow flags and are heavily penalized for violations. There is just no reason to effectively stop racing on a multi-mile circuit just because a car went off in one corner. We should go back to the old rules of yellow flags and/or a stop and restart if the track is fully blocked.
Add to this the fact that race distance is a lot shorter in FE and that they race in street circuits where time with full throttle is low and brake regen is high and suddenly Formula e is not very impressive.
They hold the races in cities instead of "real" race tracks, which I guess is cool if that's your home town but as a (lukewarm) racing fan I would rather see tracks I know. I wonder if they also want to avoid comparisons with ICE race cars. The Gen 2 Formula E did 0-60 in 2.8s... which is achievable in some ICE street cars. Hopefully the Gen 3 is more impressive.
I believe the biggest reason they are in cities now is that the battery capacity/tech just isn't there yet for something like Spa or COTA for the distance and speeds required for an interesting race. City courses allow for a design that offers a lot of regenerative braking.
Another reason to host them in cities is that cities are great for fans. Lots of hotels, restaurants, people buy tickets, etc. Cities are likely more open to Formula E due to the quieter cars and lower pollution too.
So, not useless, just maybe not interesting to you.
I'd bet FE has similar arrangement - no one wants obvious comparison with an obvious loser by some metric.
As a comparison, the FE pole time was 1:29.839. Last year the F1 pole lap was 1:10.346.
https://formularegionaleubyalpine.com/corsa/monaco-2021/
(This is really Formula 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Formula_Regional_European... )
To back my statement: if you look at the race times for the last 20-25 years F1 cars didn't get any faster at completing a race. They got faster at completing a qualifying lap so we could say that current cars are built to run hot laps and have to enter into a slow mode to run a race. BTW that cost billions of cumulative engineering efforts. If somebody tells Dallara to build 20 copies of a Ferrari F1 car from 2004 (Ferrari won 15 out of 18 races that year) you'll have a v10 series much faster than any IndyCar or F2, only slightly slower than current F1 and it will cost a fraction because of the reasons for IndyCar costs a fraction of F1.
Formula 1 2019 and 2021: 1:32.029, 1:32.910.
Moto GP 2021: 2:02.781.
There's nothing stopping an unaffiliated race series from starting up, but good luck attracting any top tier drivers.
I appear to have misunderstood. Sorry about that.
> There's nothing stopping an unaffiliated race series from starting up, but good luck attracting any top tier drivers.
I pretty much agree with that.
One problem surfaced as many times as Formula 1 teams threatened to break away from FIA and do their own league is that FIA could ban all FIA seriest to race on circuits that organize races for the break away series. That's bad for circuits because they lose many weekends of income so nobody wants non FIA series.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_Competition_Committ...
If I were to launch a single seater electric car tournament tomorrow and provide cars for a bunch of racers, surely I have myself an event? Is being FIA-backed just nice to have, or a prerequisite, or?
There's obviously nothing stopping you from setting up your own series, but there's a _lot_ that would go into it, and the FIA handles a lot of that stuff for other series.