Reflections on the Formula E opener

Lucas di Grassi with his team after wining the Chinese E-Prix. Photo courtesy of Lucas di Grassi instagram

I’ll admit, I’m one of the skeptics who thought that Formula E would never throw the green flag on a race. I’m still of the opinion that Formula E isn’t long for the world, and I’m half watching it to see if Indycar could salvage any of the races in a year or two once Formula E fails. Still, they’ve defied the odds so far and started a race in China, which is more than Indycar can say.

So, here are my observations after watching the broadcast on FS1:

The field is for real: Formula E has attracted an incredibly respectable field of drivers. F-E is loaded with driver with Formula One experience, Indycar drivers and some of the best talent cast out of the European ladder series. There isn’t really a weak link in the field and it’s a professional field.

The sound is not pleasant: The best way I can describe it is to imagine twelve vacuums running side-by-side. It was screeching to the point of unpleasantness. It’s not a sound that excites you, or even makes you want to listen to it. If you don’t like the current F-1 sound you’re not going to like Formula E.

Not a big crowd: There weren’t a lot of grandstands and the few that they had weren’t full. At best it appeared that the first ever “E-Prix” drew maybe 10,000 people.

Short Race: Start to finish, even with a lengthy caution it took an hour or so to run 25 laps. It doesn’t really seem like a good value for the ticket holder, especially with no support races.

It looked slow: It looked slow because it was slow. The cars have a top speed of 150 mph, the slowest of any major racing series,  even NASCAR. The lap times were unimpressive. Nico Prost won the pole with a lap time of 1:42.2 on a circuit that was just 2.11 miles long. For comparison sake Zach Veach won the pole at Barber Motorsports Park, a 2.38 mile course, in Indy Lights with a lap of 1:17.4. The Pro Mazda pole time last year was 1:21.07. Even the bricks on roller skates that is NASCAR could be faster.  Jamie McMurray set the track record of 1:14.35 this year at the 1.99 mile Sonoma Raceway. So right now, Formula E is the slowest form of professional racing in the world.

It pays to be out front: Since all the cars are essentially spec and they all have the same amount of battery reserve it reasons that the cars in front can save more energy than the ones behind. I think what we’re going to find out over time is that qualifying will likely determine the finishing order.

The Fox Sports One Broadcast sucked: It was pretty obvious that FS1 was just taking an international feed and playing commercials randomly over it. At one point they cut away in the middle of Dario Franchitti talking and allowed us to watch a lot of caution. Also the cameras seemed placed just a bit too far from the track, lending to a lot of long-distance panning shots.

Wait, did Nick Hindfeld just die? In one of the most dangerous-looking crashes I’ve seen at the end of the race Nico Prost, acted just like his father, Alain Prost, seemed to charge into Hindfield in the center of a straightaway. The resulting accident threw Hindfield into the air before he crashed into a retaining fence. After the race he was uninjured. I guess it was the slow speed that saved him.

Bottom Line: It’s the first race, and that’s a massive accomplishment for any series trying to establish itself in a crowded motorsports market. The circuit looked professional and so did the field. Still, I have to wonder about the Formula E’s long term sustainability. It’s new, it’s green, and that’s generating an impressive amount of corporate sponsorship, but can the series survive long term? One of the problems Indycar has had is finding support series to run with on ovals, and attendance has suffered. Can Formula E support the massive investment it must be making in logistics alone to run short races in front of small crowds?

So their start was better than I expected, but I suspect they have a long way to go before they start turning a profit. I understand that Formula E wants to be a headlining act, but ultimately I wonder if they wouldn’t better served by acting as supporting act for established racing. If nothing else it will be interesting to see where it goes from here.