I am doing something a bit different. Normally we have First Impressions within an hour or 90 minutes of the end of an IndyCar race but because of the nature of the Formula E season opener I think we need to look at what the first race of this new generation in Formula E.
1. First thoughts: It was a good race. It was a livelier race compared to previous Formula E events. For four seasons we had constant conservation. It didn't matter if it was the first car or second car, everyone was concerned with making it to the end of the race and rarely was anyone pushing it.
This race felt like everyone was on it from the start. The pack spread out. You had comers and goers. There was plenty of side-by-side racing. I think this was a check in the right box.
2. António Félix da Costa took the victory from pole position; the first Formula E victory for BMW and Andretti Autosport but it came after a bit of controversy. The Techeetah of Jean-Éric Vergne passed da Costa halfway through the race and he was the faster car but then Vergne, his teammate André Lotterer, da Costa's teammate Alexander Sims and a few other drivers were given drive-through penalties for "technical infringements," which ended up using too much power.
Dario Franchitti on the broadcast explained that using too much power could occur when a car spins the wheels over bumps on track. And that sucks. I don't want a race to be determined that way. There should be no "using too much power." You know when using too much power should be noticed? When a car has parked on track because its battery is dead. There is no point in having any of these cars have energy at the end.
Who cares if cars run out with a lap to go or two laps to go? That is the beauty of racing. We should want drivers pushing it and if they run out of power then great! It is a race. Drivers should be regulated on power use during the race. They have a battery and if they run it dry than so be it.
3. Vergne may have deserved the victory but da Costa held his own. Sims had a poor qualifying sessions, the penalty didn't help and he got another penalty for a second technical infringement. Jérôme d'Ambrosio was competitive and at the front for most of this one, as was Sébastien Buemi but Buemi was not moving forward. He had the pace to stay with the leaders but not challenge for position.
If there is a bit of good news for Vergne it is the way the race is now he could serve a penalty, come out in fourth and finish second. He did benefit from a safety car but the penalty was not a deathblow like I think it would have been in previous season. Lotterer still finished fifth in this one despite his penalty. It could have been a better day but it wasn't a day where Techeetah got nothing from this race despite being two of the three best cars.
4. Quickly through the rest of the field: Mitch Evans had an impressive day in fourth. Oliver Rowland made a good charge to seventh. I think both Audi Sport Abt cars were sent to the rear, two of six cars sent to the back, and Daniel Abt was eighth with Lucas di Grassi in ninth. Not a great start for those two but better than last year. Nelson Piquet, Jr. got the final point.
Both Virgin cars were sent to the read and neither Sam Bird nor Robin Frijns could get into the points and they finished 11th and 12th respectively.
José María López was running in the top six when he had a mechanical failure. He looked competitive but his Dragon Racing teammate Maximilian Günther was nowhere to be seen in this one. The same goes for both NIO cars of Oliver Turvey and Tom Dillmann. Dillmann qualified second in a wet session but was sent to the rear after he ran too many laps in qualifying, once again why is that a rule?
Felipe Massa looked good in his debut but he only finished 14th and his Venturi teammate Edoardo Mortara kept getting into the barriers.
HWA did not have a great debut. Stoffel Vandoorne qualified fifth in the wet but the race was in the dry and he sunk to the rear while Gary Paffett was off pace for most of this one.
Felix Rosenqvist's Formula E career ends with a thud: A poor qualifying session and a retirement after a handful of laps.
5. Attack mode seems to be a dud. First, I don't like that it is mandatory. Second, there was one activation zone and it seemed way too small and way too far off line. You really could tell when someone was on it or when someone drove through it. I am sure it is going to be tweaked but for something the series heavily pushed leading up to the season opener it helped with a few passes but I am not sure it lived up to the hype.
6. Now that teams do no have to do a car swap, how many cars are teams bringing to the track? Does each entry have a backup car or are teams bringing one spare? That was the first thing I thought of when I saw Edoardo Mortara got into the barriers during practice.
It also came to mind during the break between qualifying and the race. Under the old system, teams in theory could use one car to practice, let it charge and use the other car for qualifying and then let that car charge for the race. I understood the gaps between sessions but with one car, how does that work. The gap between practice and qualifying was not that great. Are teams still using two different cars and then before the race have to decide on one car for the event?
These are the things that should have been explained beforehand. Forget attack mode and having the Saudi government pay for Wayne Rooney to come to the race (you think Wayne Rooney paid for the trip himself? Come on man. It was purely for optics). We need to know the basics and this is a Formula E problem.
7. Formula E still does a terrible job communicating basic details and that is what a fan base, people who actually invest into the series want. The series has so much downtime and it needs a Jon Beekhuis who can explain the tech stuff and the regulations of a race.
The series is too focused on being a millennial distraction with social media crap. It doesn't really care if you know how the series works and that is a bit infuriating.
The same goes with having an easy place where to find the weekend schedule. Is it that hard to have a basic grid with session and start time for all practices, qualifying and the race? The series is more worried about promoting the concerts over the three days than the on-track activities and maybe that is the series marketing strategy.
Maybe Formula E realized how few people actually care about motorsports and the dwindling audience and instead of promote concerts, promote David Guetta, The Black Eyed Peas (minus Fergie, at least I think minus Fergie, I don't think she has performed with The Black Eyed Peas in five years) and... Enrique Iglesias? (Really?) Sell the concerts and the have a race. The race is the warm-up act but a warm-up with a podium ceremony and confetti cannons.
However, it just continues to show how Formula E alienates actual motorsports fans, the audience they should have had a shoe in from the start. Many people are not going to the race and couldn't care less about who is performing an after a race but will have the time to put aside to watch practice or qualifying if they knew when it was going to be on.
It is something really simple that the series still cannot grasp.
8. U.S. broadcast specific issue: The broadcast starts five minutes before the start of the race. Just enough time to cover the grid but that's it. You have no clue what the track looked like, whether the first turn was a right or a left, no explanation of how attack mode works even though the broadcasters are mentioning it and it is not good.
Fox Sports is doing the bare minimum, which is fine; they have all the right in the world to give that amount of effort. They did bring Steve Matchett in to throw to break and reintroduce the broadcast. It is always good to have more Steve Matchett in our lives but there was nothing pertinent on before the race. There could have been a half-hour pre-race show at 6:30 a.m. Although, my guide said the broadcast wasn't beginning until 7:30 a.m. ET but with everything else saying 7:00 a.m. I figured I roll the dice and see who was right and it turns out it came on at 7:00 a.m. The broadcast was still only an hour and ended at 8:00 a.m., which sucks because you got no post-race. You have no connection to any of the drivers and you heard zero emotion from da Costa or Vergne after his penalty. The broadcast ended and plenty of questions remained unanswered.
The U.S. broadcast has room for massive improvements. I do not expect them to come. It is Fox and I bet Formula E is on page 125 of 126 in terms of importance.
On the bright side, this broadcast was better than ESPN's coverage of the Australian Grand Prix this year. So it wasn't worst broadcast of the year.
9. I am not sure if we are going to do this after every race but I think it is important to check in on the series a few time during this season to see how races are going, how attack mode is doing and to see if where we are at.
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