Formula E - The Good the Bad and the Battery

Formula E - What’s going well, and what isn’t

It may seem like a series in its infancy, but Formula E is midway through its seventh full season.

Now an official FIA World Championship alongside the likes of Formula 1 and the World Endurance Championship (WEC), FE has begun to attract plenty of attention - and not always for the right reasons.

Season 7 has seen the very best of the fully electric series, such as the thrilling Monaco E-Prix, and the absolute worst with a series of bizarre decisions by race organisers calling the professionalism of the sport into question.

So what does the future hold for FE? Is it consigned to being a dumping ground for F1 rejects with clumsy logistical errors damaging the racing - or does it have the potential to establish itself as an alternative pinnacle to other well-established forms of motorsport?

Formula E - The Racing

The 2021 Monaco E-Prix was the epitome of what FE is meant to be about - enthralling street circuit racing with shrewd energy management, smart use of the boosts available and bold overtaking all playing a major part in the outcome of the race.

Reigning champion Antonio Felix Da Costa won the race after a sensational dive around the outside of Mitch Evans coming out of the famous Monaco tunnel on the very last lap. There were 4 overtakes for the lead between Da Costa, Evans and Robin Frijns - not including the occasions where the drivers gave up the lead in order to drive offline and receive ‘Attack Mode’ - a 4-minute increase in power that each driver must take twice during the race.

FE has raced in Monaco before but this was the first time that they were permitted to use the classic track layout in full, giving a direct comparison to F1. Even the most loyal fan would admit that FE’s race was immeasurably more entertaining than the procession of previous years at F1 in Monaco - despite FE cars being visibly slower with top speeds of 175mph, compared to F1 cars reaching over 200 mph. 

The FE cars are less complicated aerodynamically, and as a result, it’s much easier for drivers to follow closely in turbulent air and ultimately make an overtake. It’s less risky to make a daring overtake like Da Costa’s, too - the cars are more robust which means that minor contact with another driver is far less likely to result in major damage unlike in F1, where front wings can clip a tyre and cause an immediate puncture.

‘Attack Mode’ also creates strategic interest without the need for pitstops, ensuring that the cars are always close to one another, whilst ‘Fanboost’ allows fans to vote on social media for 6 drivers that get an additional boost of power for 5 seconds at a point of their choosing during the second half of the race.

Motorsport purists may hate the principle of Fanboost, but it’s another way of generating exciting racing, with Da Costa putting his Fanboost to good use and overtake Frijns.

Formula E Calamities

The success of the Monaco E-Prix was extremely timely, relieving some of the mounting pressure after a number of embarrassing occurrences in FE.

The second race in Diriyah was red-flagged with around 10 minutes of the race to go, following a huge accident involving Mitch Evans and Alex Lynn. Nine penalties were issued in the aftermath of the race, including a 24 second time penalty for Jean Eric Vergne who had finished 3rd on track but was unable to use his second attack mode as required. Nobody could have predicted the red flag and so it appeared incredibly unfair to penalise Vergne and the other drivers that suffered the same fate.

An even more embarrassing and baffling decision making was to follow, though. 

The first Valencia E-Prix - and the first-ever race in FE not to take place on a street circuit - featured five safety cars as drivers kept spinning off and getting beached in the gravel. Rather than allowing the cars to race flat out, having saved so much energy under the reduced speed of the safety car that they would have been able to do so, the organisers opted to reduce the electric energy of each car as per the usual regulations.

Energy management is part of the skillset required for FE success and no team or driver has any qualms with this. However, the calculations in Valencia around energy reduction went horribly, horribly wrong; cue most of the field crawling round the last lap in order to finish the race, and only 3 cars finishing at anything like full speed and the drivers that were 9th and 15th at the start of the last lap finishing 2nd and 3rd respectively.

These sort of mistakes happen and could be forgiven as a one-off if FE had simply held its hands up and admitted its error. Instead, their social media championed the race as a prime example of why energy management is important, and race organisers blamed race leader Antonio Felix Da Costa for going ‘too fast’ after a safety car restart, meaning he crossed the line before the race timer hit 0 seconds, meaning that there were 2 more laps to go. 

Da Costa could not have gone any slower and was clearly riled by the comments made - and he was right to be. It was the biggest FE clanger yet, adding to the puzzling penalties and other unfortunate events such as a loose drain cover that took out both Mercedes cars in Rome.

The Future of Formula E

FE was very, very fortunate that Monaco was not only an enthralling race but also passed without major controversy - turning the tide on the rhetoric of bemusement from previous races. The sport may have embraced the ‘all publicity is good publicity’ motto, and it's hard to argue against the stats of rapidly rising audiences for races (helped by the BBC’s live coverage of races since 2019).

Climate change and electric automobile development will only seek to promote FE further in comparison to other motorsports that may struggle to remain relevant without adopting a far more sustainable racing approach - something that FE have a considerable head start on, along with following all-electric series Extreme E.

FE needs to embrace its progressiveness and focus on promoting its image as a fresh form of racing - not held back by any of the traditional baggage of motorsports -  and the momentum will continue to grow the sport’s profile exponentially. All the right ingredients are there; it just needs to stop shooting itself in the foot.