Formula E: my impressions

And to celebrate my 100th post... No, no skins at the moment. Hands full with other projects.

So I will give my opinions about the start of the 2014-15 season of the FIA Formula E, that took place on the streets of Beijing past Saturday.

The car:

I think that’s one point where I was paying attention in the transmission without many expectations. The Spark-Renault SRT_01E showed what I was expecting in terms of reliability, maybe a bit more. As the model is the same for everyone, and gives little room for adjustments, it needs the driver to take the best of its capabilities. There’s room for improvement and evolution, but I think this evolution will in long term. And it's good to know that the car is safe, given what happened in the last lap.

The track:

Maybe this first track in Beijing was made like that to help into car charging, so they would surely end their stins, but from what was seen in the official tests, the only part of the car that wasn’t evidenced in the Bird’s Nest track was the speed. I think that I would stay with popular opinion that a longer straight was missing.

The drivers:

Although there were some late additions in the lineups, the level of the drivers in the Formula E was really high. Another thing that was evidenced is that endurance drivers will be in slight advantage because of their ability of managing resources while being speedy. Nick Heidfeld and Franck Montagny were the drivers that shown this at their best, being the hard chargers of the race in my opinion.

The competition:

I didn’t saw the whole schedule, but I liked what I saw. I read someone writing that qualify should have a Superpole, but it’s the kind of change that wouldn’t be added now. The racing format was OK, but I would bet on a shorter length to make the drivers do some sprint laps without worrying about the batteries. 35-40 minutes should be OK. I don’t see the daily format changing too much, but some features would be added or adjusted as the car evolves and gets more reliable.

Conclusion – the category has so much potential for evolution. Maybe they started the thing a bit early, but at least the foundation is here, just needing some tweaks. There are lots of powerful and fast electric cars in the world, so it's just needed that the parties involved in Formula E continue interested in cooperate. If the category continues evolving in a good pace, two or three years would make the Formula E a top-tier category.

PHOTOS: FIA Formula E