The days of sparkly Hong Kong, amazing location of Les Invalides in Paris, the wonder of the roller-coaster Rome EPrix and the banks of the Upper Bay of the Hudon River in Red Hook may be over but it doesn’t stop some from dreaming of some kind of return to these iconic locations.
But Formula E has a clear message. ‘We’ve grown up’ and you don’t go clubbing as an adult to the places you partied as a kid.
It’s a great analogy, and it was one entertainingly used by Formula E CEO, Jeff Dodds, when he sat down with Formula E Notebook at Shanghai last week
“If I am honest, I would say thinking that way (re-visiting previous glamour locations) isn’t helpful, because the reality is you can’t put the car on those tracks now,” affirmed Dodds.
“We could never get a track [suited to Gen4] built in Central Paris. We couldn’t go on the old Rome track with the Gen4 car, or the old downtown circuit in Hong Kong. As much as we might look back and say those events were great, we have grown up.
“In the same way, that if I went back to the same nightclubs I went to as a teenager, I’d probably look a bit awkward. Similarly, the Gen4 car would be awkward on some of those tracks.”
Dodds, a known and enthusiast imbiber of some excellent 90’s dance, trance and house music, may have metaphorical ‘little fluffy clouds’ above him regarding the well-received first Gen4 calendar. But is Formula E really ‘safe from harm’ or is it looking for some ‘unfinished sympathy’ when it comes to its own schedule as Gen4 starts to mature?
“What we are looking for now is locations that are vibrant and energising, but still have a [Gen4-friendly] circuit, or the ability to build a circuit,” added Dodds.
“Tokyo is perfect: incredible city, vibrant, technology-focused, and we can build a street circuit that the car can race on. It’s a win-win.
“I guess we are trying to find a balance of bringing fans to the track but also race the car and show it off properly. If we took the car back to some of our old locations, you wouldn’t see much of a spectacle. We have grown up and we have to find locations that let us do our job properly.”
Why the track has to suit ‘the style’
Track the cycle of Formula E generations of car in symbiosis of the tracks they raced on, the ratio of pace of car and challenge of circuit was just right for Formula E.
Some of the tracks in Gen1 and Gen2 were very much on gnarly side in terms of their challenge. They were fun but in way sustainable. Some were frankly a massive pain in the posterior for Formula E, and sometimes that came with significant financial pain too.
Anyone who witnessed and lived through the Bern EPrix and its very troubled gestation and build, will attest to that. Magnificent track; horrendous logistics. Ditto the first Santiago race, ditto Moscow, ditto Montreal. Add in a splash of political nightmare and some of those races were, sadly, more trouble than they were worth.
“The Gen1 car, quite small, not particularly fast and the battery capacity was not high,” says Dodds,
“We couldn’t race those on big circuits. We had to go and find city circuits with lots of twists and turns, lots of braking zones. The circuit style matched the car.
“Fast forward to Gen4, with a much bigger footprint and extremely fast, you have to fit that with the right type of track. We want to retain our DNA of street circuits, which we have with Sao Paulo, Berlin, Sanya, Tokyo. But also, you need circuits that show the car off to its best capability.
“So, we have Miami, Jeddah, Jarama, Brands Hatch. They are fast circuits, with high crowd capacity, but I would also call them intimate circuits. You still get that intimate feeling that I think our fans like.”
The Gen4 calendar should be pretty stable with the majority of the circuits unveiled at the FIA World Motorsport Council meeting last month, having reasonably medium to long term deals with Formula E. But what comes next from 2030 onward?
“When we get to Gen5, and the car is even faster, maybe the strategy evolves,” believed Dodds.
“If you went back to the first season, and did the analysis of whether you could race Gen4 on any of those tracks, I suspect the answer would be ‘no’ to almost all of them.”
He’s probably right, give or take a Tempelhof or perhaps a Long Beach. The question for the future is possibly how Formula E will build its events rather than where they actually race. The Jarama model was a success and many suspect Zandvoort and Brands Hatch will be too.
COTA maybe a challenge too far in terms of getting a crowd. But let’s see. Finally, Formula E has some strong stability and probably date equity when it comes to its calendar and for that the fans and TV viewers should finally say ‘hurrah.’
The Orb and Massive Attack contributed to this report
