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Formula E

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51–55 of 55 posts

Re: Formula E

#51
post #14

>> "The schedule is set to include London, Berlin, Rome, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Beijing, Bangkok, and Purtrajaya, as well as stateside races in Los Angeles and Miami. " The fact that this is run completely on street circuits will hurt it. Over taking is incredibly difficult on street circuits and that will turn most people away from it.

Seems like they can temporarily boost the horsepower to overtake. For me, it's exciting, i will definitely try to attend a race in my city :)

>>Seems like they can temporarily boost the horsepower to overtake

On street circuits HP isn't the issue. Take the F1 Monaco track. There simply isn't space to overtake. There are maybe 2 viable overtake spots and they're seriously borderline.

Re: Formula E

#52

and the pit stops don’t just involve swapping tires or batteries, but switching cars . This is not what racing is about. Racing is about making sure you not only go the fastest around the track, but it's about endurance of the car itself. Particularly in what amounts to a manufacturer race where it's all about the car. I love this idea otherwise. Electric cars are getting better and better each day.

>This is not what racing is about.

Why? Swapping cars isn't that much of a jump from the real world solution Tesla is proposing with the battery pack switches. Remember not so long ago F1 had a team car which was essentially switching to another car in case of emergency too.

Re: Formula E

#53
post #30

and the pit stops don’t just involve swapping tires or batteries, but switching cars . This is not what racing is about. Racing is about making sure you not only go the fastest around the track, but it's about endurance of the car itself. Particularly in what amounts to a manufacturer race where it's all about the car. I love this idea otherwise. Electric cars are getting better and better each day.

This is a spec series, and every team will expect reliability. Endurance in top flight racing is a given. Races are well with in the endurance of the cars. Technical failure is way less than driver failure. Besides, the car swap is an interim thing to get them going. In time, it will go. Im very looking forward to this.

Endurance in top flight racing is a given. Races are well with in the endurance of the cars.

Dr. Ferdinand Porsche is popularly reported to have said "The perfect race car should fall apart the second it crosses the finish line."

Point is, there is always a trade-off between speed and reliability. If you get to the finish line well within the bounds of your reliability every time, you are sacrificing speed.

But it is less of an issue if the cars are all almost identical.

Re: Formula E

#54

The biggest problem with this race series is the organizing body. The FIA is a dinosaur. Unless they change their ways you will not be able to watch these races in the US unless you have expensive cable/satellite service that include the Speed channel. The FIA has not embraced the Internet. There is no easy way to watch F1 races online. I hope they take a different approach with Formula E.

Weird. In europe you can watch it online on the provider who bought the rights in your region. Only thing that is annoying is that they dont allow retention, so if you are 3-4 hours late you are SOL. Sad if the sold the US rights to someone who does no online streaming.

Re: Formula E

#55
post #33
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think choosing street circuits was a great decision. The two street circuits in F1 (Monaco and Singapore) are highly regarded by both the fans and drivers as being exciting and challenging races. On top of this, the possibility of a race running through "your city" has the potential to draw audiences far greater than that of F1.

There are five current street circuits. You missed Melbourne, Valencia and Montreal.

You're right, my bad. Although I would argue that Singapore and Monaco are in a class of their own in terms of the shape of the track and the subsequent load on the driver and car. Montreal, Melbourne and Valencia don't have the same tight, constricted feel of the other two, because of their wider tracks, longer straights and faster corners. They're also not in areas as densely populated as Monaco and Singapore. Off the top of my head I recall Montreal and Melbourne are both around large parks? Anyway, my original point was that these circuits (in dense urban areas) result in exciting and popular spectator experiences.
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