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I’ve heard a lot of people saying ‘the track is too simple and the car has only 300bhp so it won’t be a challenge’. It’s completely the opposite in my opinion because everything will be new – the car, the track and the way the races are run. Let’s not forget that this is the first race ever for Formula E, not just the first of the season.
There are also lots of exciting tracks on the rest of the calendar. They haven’t released the details of many, and I can’t give too much away here, but some of them are great. You’ll all know Monaco, of course, and there are quite a few which are more technical than that. Beijing’s offering is just fine to start things off as the track is wide enough to allow plenty of overtaking and it’ll be very safe.
Whatever the track, the first race was always going to be demanding because we won’t have had any practice. We will have done some testing on normal circuits, but ultimately we’ll have to rely on simulator work. The teams are planning on building simulator models for all the tracks, and you can do this quite easily if you just want something simple.
However, if you want a more precise model – like the ones they use in F1 – you need to scan the entire track. You can imagine how useful that would be for the drivers and teams so hopefully we can get this sorted.
I don’t think learning the tracks will be one of the biggest hurdles, though… We know the car will be easily adapted to each circuit – it reacts really well to changes in setup – but what we don’t know yet is how the race strategy will work out. We’ll only have an hour and a half of free practice and in that time we have to learn the track, set the car up and also work out how we use the two cars. One of each driver’s cars will have less power than the other so it’ll be important to be in the right one at the right time.
No one has any data on this so it’ll be the same for everyone. It’ll be a matter of not just finding outright performance, but also adapting the cars so that they make the best use of the power available.
I haven’t tested the car with full power yet, but I spoke to Jarno Trulli who has done. He was quite impressed and said that the car was nice to drive – not in terms of grip, but the combination of the power, grip and how it behaved. We obviously have a good base, but I’d obviously like to try it for myself.
Motor Sport readers will be pleased to hear that there isn’t much downforce on the cars so there will be plenty of sliding around. Of course, the more downforce you have, the more drag there will be and this will have an impact on the battery life, but the championship was keen to make sure that the car didn’t have more grip than power. If we did, it would be like driving a Formula 3 car…
There is a lot to work on, but the car is quick and it’s already done many, many kilometres in testing. It’s actually done more than a whole championship without a single breakdown. For a new championship with a brand new car, with ground-breaking technology, that’s very impressive.
One of the things I was afraid of was that, when the car hit the track for the first time, it would be a disaster despite the solid concept. You’re then into the situation where you’re spending as much time and effort on fixing it as you were designing and building it. At the moment everyone is quite confident that we’ll have reliable cars.
By the time I write my next Motor Sport column I will have tested the car with full power. I can’t wait, and I’ll let you know how it all goes next month.
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Paul TracyFollow Lucas on Twitter
Looks like a big nod towards the ridiculous circuit the Aussie v8s now use around the Olympic park precinct in Sydney.
I suppose the Chinese will be using tanks to create the chicanes though.
What a beautiful , flowing ,circuit with all those sweeping bends . We wouldn’t want anything too stop and go , dominated by chicanes , would we ……………………..????
Mario Carneiro Neto, 31 March 2014 02:56Lucas! Que bom vê-lo escrevendo por aqui! Continue assim, e boa sorte em ambas as temporadas que estão por começar!
Um Abraço de São Paulo!
Mario
(Sorry for the portuguese, guys, just wanted to leave an encouraging message to my compatriot! Great to see Lucas writing for Motorsport. Another hit!)
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