New third-generation Formula E car is fastest ever electric racer
autocar.co.uk
autocar.co.uk
If you think about all the progress that was made during the group B and early formula 1 days and look at the regulations that were in play at the time, it seems like opening up the regulations in Formula E would make a lot of sense.
You mean like literally any other form of automotive racing?
The advantage here is that all that R&D would push for more powerful, lightweight, efficient EV powertrains instead of going into a dead, and largely "solved", problem of ICEs.
You'd also get loss of safety margins, and therefore increased risk and insurance costs on the organisers and teams.
And in the end, it would come back to price of tech wins, once driver effects are discounted.
Some cheap parts are surprisingly good. The assumption you only increase cost by mandating but automatically get "the best" might be undermined. What if there was a sudden surge of surplus high-Q magnets, and your home-made motor had significantly higher torque, for less weight, and a novel wheel mounting? Getting that kind of thing rated would be a 5+ year exercise in some cases.
(I don't follow F1 in any form, but I remember a lot of nonsense around the time ground effect skirts first came on the scene, and again with winglets, and complaints about driver safety effects on speed...)
Motorsport is a great way to attract talent and drive innovation, but has always been super risky in terms of straight money in/money out. That's why they say, "You know how to make a small fortune in motorsport? Start out with a large one".
"chaotic" is what I'd call it. Something about the presentation and the way they try so hard to focus on the UI/UX being "electric" and fast-paced means that there's an onslaught of motions on the screen for what's not generally amazing racing to begin with.
I occasionally watch highlights of FE from time to time [0] to see how the spectacle side of thing have developed, and whether it's stuff like fan boost or attack zone it all makes it feel like a video game from the 90s. Kind of like F-Zero, to be honest.
I think the technology development in EV and battery tech alone is worth it, and more OEMs should invest if only to retain brand awareness rather than a TV or Internet ad that no one will ever watch, but I agree the racing is... mediocre. I don't think it's just because it's mainly F1 'flunkies' but it's more than the racing itself hasn't really found what it wants to be and is really trying to appeal to those whose only racing exposure is from video games rather than club or grass roots racing as it was for the last century. They're approaching an E-sports business model within motorsports, which is odd but lucrative if they can crack the nut.
By contrast Moto-E is actually an incredibly fun watch; the races are much shorter than the ICE but doesn't have any non-sense so as a result riders can just go flat out with out holding anything back which results in a Super Pole race using bikes with full torque at 0 RPM and it's very close [1]. nd has an entirely separate E-sports division which ultimately makes DORNA have sold out races, COVID notwithstanding, and more viewers than ever.
I'm a happy F1TV subscriber, and really enjoyed watching some FE races here and there in the past, but it feels like they're going out of their way to make it difficult or pointless to actively watch full races during the season. Is there an "FETV" type of deal similar to F1TV, or do I just have to give up hope of seeing them before the end of the season?
Broadcast rights deals ruining UX yet again..
I really miss Jack and Dario on the world feed.
You could record it...
Like we always used to do.
I use the "Channels"[1] software to record programs and save them directly onto my NAS.
Of course, all cable providers also have their own DVRs. And surprisingly, Tivo still exists. https://www.tivo.com
(I'm told they can be made much more driveable for non-pros)
I would have ditched most everything to drive an FE car, even work, and I have no driving license / interest in F1 (and am 26+).
i’m not a great driver but i am good enough that most classes and “experienced” are super tedious…
"I'll have to pass, my friends and I are going to Outback Steakhouse"
Racing is a hobby for us, not just something we watch on TV. Every single one of my kids has gone through at least one SCCA driving course (multiple instructor-led days on track at Willow Springs Streets and Big Willow). We are into it, but FE just doesn’t click for some reason. Neither does NASCAR, BTW. At the risk of offending people, turning left for a million laps is just plain stupid. Sorry.
While I don't find NASCAR very interesting, I no longer think of it as "turning left for a million laps", since track position (i.e. high, middle, low) is actually a subtle, tactical game. Also, as I'm sure you know, "turning", in any racing, is never as simple as just turning the wheel; race drivers also use the brakes and throttle to turn, and there's enormous subtlety in this. The skill in NASCAR (or IndyCar oval racing) is in carefully observing your opponents, and noticing the small mistakes they consistently make, which you can then, skillfully, convert into gaining positions. Having said that, I hate the way American broadcasters cover racing, and the biggest draw of NASCAR is absolutely the spectacular crashes, which I'm not a fan of either. So, it's not for me, but I do respect the drivers.
Having said that, yes, FE has a long way to go before they are reliably producing exciting races. But they recently started racing on the same Monaco circuit layout as F1, and that race is reliably more exciting than F1's Monaco GP. If you watch no other FE races, ever, I'll nevertheless recommend watching the Monaco ePrix (dumb name), if only to see how good a race can be around those streets (something F1 will never demonstrate ever again).
Having substantial on-track experience I think I understand. For example, I definitely use throttle steer to navigate something like the large sweeper at Big Willow while doing 140 mph. The wheel is not a good input for subtlety at speed.
I don’t want to dump on NASCAR too much. I know there’s challenges and strategy. The culture of watching the races for the crashes is absolutely deplorable. Part of me can’t help but think that NASCAR reinforces the stereotype of the lazy American. Everyone sits around an oval stadium while consuming thousands of calories and watches the “race” for the carnage. I just don’t like it. Then again, I come here from a different culture. I don’t like what Americans call “football” (sorry, it isn’t). I played and I am into both rugby and real football.
That is to say, there might be a cultural element to consider.
Small nitpick, NASCAR also races on road courses. COTA, Watkins Glen, and Sonoma, plus a few others. They just raced the Indianapolis road course the day after Indy cars did. Also next year a street race in Chicago is planned.
And F1 compared to McMurtry Spéirling EV at GoodWood
[0] https://motorsport-magazine.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/wp-co...
A 23-year old F1 car - for whatever reason, the FIA doesn't let the teams do timed runs at Goodwood anymore.
It'd be neat if they took their car for a test at a track where F1 races.
There's always the argument that some obvious engine power restrictions in the rules could be worked around to make any given race car faster (Porsche with the 919 recently showed how spectacular the results of that tinkering can be), but the number of extreme improvements to F1 cars over the last 23 years in every area (aero, tires, brakes, engine, electronics, whatever) is something to contemplate.
There is some very low hanging fruit you could grab involving use of the battery and DRS if you wanted to ignore the rules and make a 2022 F1 car faster over one lap for the purposes of this comparison, so there's also that...
I really have a hard time liking formula e, the lack of engine sound takes away lots of excitement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7-O5c9NM0w&t=120s
Like a small cruise missile powered by a turbofan mounted on two wheels.
A better comparison would be a Volkswagen ID.R with an ICE compared to an electric Volkswagen ID.R. At this point in the tech, the ICE will almost certainly win.
It's also the second fastest at Nurburgring, behind by 45 seconds, 6:05.336 vs 5:19.546 [3].
It's an incredible car!
1. https://www.thedrive.com/accelerator/21731/volkswagen-i-d-r-...
2. https://www.supercars.net/blog/2013-peugeot-208-t16-pikes-pe...
3. https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a2140371/volkswagen...
To be fair, F1 on a non oval circuit is much faster than anything else. Check the times of F1 and Indycar at COTA.
In the 2022 Monaco E-Prix (FE), the best qualifying lap time was 89.839s [0].
For the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix (F1), the pole was 71.376s [1]. It's worth noting that this is with slower cars than have recently been the case; the same times last year were > 1 second faster.
The top level Formula 3 series (currently FIA International F3, formerly GP3/European F3) doesn't race at Monaco; the last time a top tier F3 championship did race there was GP3 in 2012 (88.008s) [2]. Note that these are 10-year-old cars; current top-tier F3 cars are ~15% faster [3] (at modern Silverstone, which is the only circuit configuration used both years) than they were in 2012.
While GP3/F3 weren't present, Formula Regional European, a Tier 4 series that races in Formula 3 cars did race there; pole was 89.802s [4]. However, these are a lower tier of driver and team; last year, they were 7% slower at Barcelona [5] than FIA F3.
As such, one could argue that current FIA F3 would be a bit (10%?) faster than Formula E cars at Monaco.
On the other hand, this comparison is not quite fair to the electric cars! The chemically-fueled cars do qualifying with as little fuel as possible (to reduce their weight to the minimum), where electric cars have to take the full weight hit of their total energy store during qualifying. The F1 cars can't come anywhere near their qualifying pace until the very end of the race; in theory, a Formula E car would be capable of a qualifying-paced lap at any point during the race. As such, we should also compare Formula 1 cars' paces at the start of the race. Unfortunately for the comparison this year, the F1 race started off wet; the fastest laps around Lap 3 (after the start had cleared) were ~101s [6]. The 2021 Monaco Grand Prix, which was dry, is an easier example: the fastest laps on lap 3 were about 77s [7] , still substantially faster than the FE cars ever get.
To make the Indycar comparison we need to look all the way back to 2019, since Indycar has scrupulously avoided racing at F1 tracks whenever possible, up to and including conspicuously not marketing the Indianapolis road course to F1 (despite its qualifications and history as an F1 track, and the soaring demand for US-based F1 races). In that event, the fastest qualifying lap was 105.454s [8]. For F1, the pole lap of the 2019 US GP was 93.750 [9]. There is a reason Indycar avoids comparisons.
[0] https://formulaspy.com/formula-e/qualifying-results-2022-mon...
[1] https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1112/mon...
[2] https://motorsportstats.com/results/gp3-series/2012/monaco/c...
[3] https://www.fiaformula3.com/Results?raceid=1032
[4] https://formularegionaleubyalpine.com/corsa/monaco-2022/
[5] https://formularegionaleubyalpine.com/corsa/barcelona-2021/
[6] https://www.racefans.net/2022/05/29/2022-monaco-grand-prix-i...
[7] https://www.racefans.net/2021/05/23/2021-monaco-grand-prix-i...
[8] https://www.indycar.com/results/ntt-indycar-series/2019/indy...
MotogGP for example has tightened rules basically every few years to lower the gap between the top tier teams and the low budget teams, and to slow the bikes down. Even with that, the bikes top speeds are still rising and talk of unsafe speeds at certain corners grows every year.
If you just allowed 20% larger engine sizes and custom traction control, and variable aero, bike speeds would rise so high people would die every few races instead of every few years.
No wonder F1 drivers have necks as big as their head.
> There was fear of the possibility that drivers could suffer "grey-outs" or lose consciousness from g-LOC. It is also likely that the high g-loads would have been outside the design limits for the HANS device, which was required for all CART races at oval tracks.
The battery would have enough capacity to do maybe a couple laps. So, you could slow down in the "charging section" to fully charge, or you could go faster or pass the slow cars by bypassing the charging section altogether, but then you'd have to budget your energy more carefully and maybe have to spend longer charging next lap.
It'd be interesting to set up a track like this for racing radio-controlled cars.
What might make more sense is a modular battery.
The energy density hit is between 1 and 2 orders of magnitude, not several.
You could run a lap on supercapacitors alone. Or make it so most of the power comes from supercaps so that there's a bit more endurance and running low is a bit less harsh.
Since all the cars are basically the same size, the "pantograph" might only stick up a few inches.
A somewhat more complex system might have power and ground rails embedded in slots in the road surface, and there's something on the bottom of the car that drops a conductor into the slots. There's a test of that kind of system being done in Norway or Sweden (I forget which) on a public road.
For completeness, here's their site: https://www.mahindraracing.com/
Introduced for the 2018/19 season was ATTACK MODE, which lets every driver pick up an extra hit of power at their own risk. To fire up ATTACK MODE, drivers will need to arm their car, drive off the racing line, and through the Activation Zone. As a reward for taking a slower line through the corner, they’ll be able to collect an extra 30kW of power. Drivers that secure the extra speed, can use it for a few laps when they want to race harder, giving them the edge to keep ahead of the competition.
On top of that, there's FANBOOST - your chance to impact the race. The five drivers who receive the highly-acclaimed FANBOOST – as voted for by you, the fans - are awarded a significant burst of power, which they can deploy in a five-second window during the second half of the race. You can vote to FANBOOST your favourite driver in the week prior to, and leading up to 15 minutes into, each race.
Fan boost is... uninteresting. It's bringing elements from game shows, not video games, and rewards the drivers who spend the most time and effort on influencer behavior. This is excusable, I suppose, for the sake of increasing the sport's profile. But it definitely doesn't help make the racing any better or more entertaining for people who are racing fans, rather than fans of a specific driver.
I'm not watching yet, but I'm optimistic about its future.