FE Retro: The DNA of city centre racing

While the pieces in Alejandro Agag and Formula E Holdings’ complex start-up electric racing puzzle came together, the biggest logistical and intricately planned strategy was being tackled concurrently. This was the all-important race venues that would make-up the official FIA sanctioned calendar.

One vital question was answered early on. Indeed it went back the now legendary ‘that napkin’ meeting in Paris when the question was raised about taking the races to the city centres in order for future clean tech to showcase itself to an urban audience.

It was simple and effective and soon became the acknowledged DNA which would so attract manufacturers and major partners. But it raised serious questions about the complex feasibility, cost and planning of the races.

The demonstrations of the Formulec prototype car in Hollywood and in Rome was one thing but sealing off city streets and implementing safety and communication infrastructure was quite another.

One man who knew such things could be pulled off was Manolo Ortiz-Tallo, the former events manager at Dorna Sports, the company which had formed motorcycle racing in to the globally successful Moto GP brand.

Ortiz-Tallo was imbued in motorsport logistics and event management ever since his early days as an integral part of the Jolly Club Lancia rally squad where he counted legends such as Markku Alen and Miki Biasion as friends and colleagues.

Hailing from Malaga, Ortiz-Tallo was headhunted by Agag and once the FIA had given FEH the greenlight to be organisers and promoters, Ortiz-Tallo’s monumental workload began at the start of 2013.

‘I was introduced to Alejandro by (CEO of Moto GP) Carmelo Ezpeteta,’ recalls Tallo.

‘Carmelo said to me ‘this guy (Agag) wants to race in city centres with electric cars so it will not happen but speak to him anyway and see what he says.’

Agag shrewdly used Ortiz-Tallo’s expertise to warm up the FIA as he filed his tender for the promoters deal and by the end of the year Ortiz-Tallo was one of the first employees signed up.

Carlos Nunes was a vastly experienced former F1 mechanic/team manager with first March and then the Benetton/Renault and latterly the HRT F1 squads. He was highly respected and trusted by Agag after managing the short-lived Addax GP3 team in 2011 before becoming an instrumental figure as technical director at FEH.

Nunes’ fellow ex-HRT F1 team member, Enrique Buenaventura, was also appointed the Chief Legal Officer and Company Secretary in what amounted to the first cell of employees for FEH.

Still, it was Ortiz-Tallo, who worked largely alone in 2013 who got the ball rolling with Agag and Longo. Soon cities started to commit to deals to host races for the inaugural 2014/15 season.

‘The work in those early days was crazy and I was traveling so much,’ said Ortiz-Tallo.

‘I remember that Alejandro told me ‘Manolo, I want to race in New York City’ and I thought ‘this man is crazy. This will never, ever happen because in the history of the five boroughs there has never been a race of any category there, never.’

He was right, even though the Meadowlands CART race in the 1980s came close, such notions of racing in the ‘Big Apple’ seemed like flights of fancy but even at this early stage Agag was planning for the seemingly impossible to be achieved.

Short-term the calendar took shape but there were inevitably many bumps along the way.

The first city to show significant interest and to stake a claim for a race was Rio de Janeiro but this proved a false dawn and the Brazilian city never made the final cut of the first iteration of the calendar.

Likewise, planned races in Rome and Bangkok never transpired. But what was stamped in to the concrete of the schedule was the first round in Beijing around the legendary ‘Birds Nest’ stadium which had hosted the Olympic games of 2008.

This would be scheduled to take place on 13 September 2014 and as if the pressure were not great enough then the presence of the FIA World Motorsport Council the day before the race certainly gave it extra intensity.

On 12 April 2014 the FIA issued the provisional calendar. After Beijing it included races in an historic suburb of Kuala Lumpur known as Putrajaya, the Uruguayan holiday resort of Punta del Este, Buenos Aires, a ‘To be Decided’ date on Valentine’s Day, Miami, Los Angeles (soon to be transferred to nearby Long Beach), Monte Carlo, Berlin and the finale in the home of Formula E’s Hammersmith offices – London.

Originally the ExCel Arena in London Docklands, the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park Hyde Park and a venue centred around Wembley Stadium were all considered for a London round. Agag instead went for Battersea Park, a location where he walked with his family and occasionally took part in impromptu football matches with friends.

While the Valentine’s Day date never transpired, there was the extra bonus of a race close to Red Square and the splendour of the Kremlin in Moscow for early June but this was not confirmed until after the season had started. It ensured that Agag’s promise of a ten date calendar was kept.