Formula E is back for the start of the new season this weekend at the high-altitude Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City.
The season the new Gen3 car, faster, lighter and much more angular, new tracks and more.
This is the first time Formula E has opened a season in Mexico City, and the last 4 seasons were introduced in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia. Unlike previous seasons, the opening race is rarely a double race this time around: there will only be one race, on Saturday, so if you wait until Sunday to sing, you’ll miss the live action.
At an altitude of nearly 2,300m, the Mexico City runway offers a demonstration of the benefits of electric propulsion. The combustion cars that circulate there have to deal with thinner air, which means less effective combustion and a decrease in engine power. With electric propulsion, this is not a fear: electric motors work just as well at any altitude.
The most exciting update this year is the new car, which is a big update to last year’s car. The Gen3 specification is very different from the previous one, with a much more angular appearance.
They are also smaller in all dimensions: length, width, wheelbase, height and, most importantly, maximum weight. Smaller cars mean there is more track space, which can potentially mean more overtaking on the track. Smaller, lighter cars also perform better, as there is less weight to push around corners or accelerate or brake.
But the maximum and attractive upgrade is on the power train. In addition to an output of 350kW (compared to 250kW in Gen2) and a sensible top speed of 200mph, the Gen3 also has an additional 250kW front motor in particular for regenerative braking. This makes the Formula E Gen3 car the first Formula car to have front and rear powertrains.
That means the car is capable of regenerating up to 600kW of braking power, more than double what it could last year. Thus, cars will be more effective and therefore pass more and faster.
In fact, there is so much energy recovery from the engines that the car may not even have rear brakes. Instead of rear friction brakes, the car relies only on its 350kW motor for rear braking. It still has front brakes, given that the front axle does most of the work when braking due to load transfer, but the front brakes probably shouldn’t be as large as the ones supported by the front engine.
That said, those two powertrains don’t make the Gen3 car a four-wheel drive vehicle. Like other formula cars, it still draws all its acceleration force from the rear axle. But, in theory, it would be imaginable to transfer it to four-wheel drive. without a first redesign of the car, so we wonder if this will be only in the future of the Gen3 car.
This force is now heading to Hankook instead of Michelin tyres, as Formula E has replaced tyre suppliers for the first time. But tires will remain all-weather tires, suitable for street racing even in rainy (-ish) situations, slicks like those used by maximum race cars, which offer much greater grip in dry situations. So, between a tougher rear engine and all-season tyres, Formula E cars will remain squirrels coming out of corners, testing the driver’s skills. in each and every corner.
So there’s not much balance shifting when accelerating, but the new car will offer a completely different braking experience, which drivers will take a while to get used to, especially the first time they go out angry on track this weekend. We expect attractive overtaking opportunities at the start of the season.
These six hundred kW of overall regenerative braking capacity of the formula are also applicable in some way. The car battery is capable of temporarily charging up to six hundred kW DC. Not only is this used in racing through the braking formula, but Formula E plans to climb mid-race pit stops this year.
In races with those pit stops, the series will require each driving force to make a brief charging stop, which will unlock “attack mode” activations, a superior force mode that gives cars a touch of force for a few minutes at a time. This replacement brings more overtaking and dynamism to the race, while demonstrating an output of 600kW, twice the speed of the fastest customer evaluators.
All this in combination allowed the cars to pass a little faster around the control track in Valencia pre-season last month, some of which in rainy conditions, meaning the groups didn’t get as many dry laps as they would like. While part of a moment doesn’t seem like much, it’s a bit in the race, and it’s also a comparison between an overtaking powertrain and an incoming one.
Whenever technological adjustments occur, groups and drivers take a while to get used to them, and for such significant adjustments, we can believe there will be a huge learning curve. We wouldn’t be surprised if the cars finished even faster after shaking up the new generation throughout the season.
The race calendar is the biggest update noticed in a long time, with 4 new circuits that Formula E has never raced on before: Hyderabad, India; Cape Town, South Africa; São Paulo, Brazil; and Portland, Oregon.
As with other Formula E seasons, especially during the COVID period, the calendar is subject to change. Previously, the series planned to return to racing in Seoul, South Korea, which closed the final racing season. But this race had to be cancelled due to renovations and was replaced via Cape Town. But the 4 new circuits still want to be qualified through the FIA for race preparation, so it’s completely imaginable that we’re going to see some adjustments to the calendar.
Hyderabad will host the first Formula E race in India, home of Mahindra Racing, a favourite team of long-time series enthusiasts. Cape Town is not the first time Formula E has visited Africa; Africa, so this is the first sub-Saharan site the series visits. São Paulo is the first time Formula E has visited Brazil, a country obsessed with racing, a country with a long history and a fan base of rabid motorsport fans, although the series has visited Uruguay. , Argentina and Chile several times. And Portland will be the fourth position in the U. S. The U. S. has seen a Formula E race, Long Beach, Miami and New York. Now we’ve seen a race in every corner of the United States. (Sorry, Central America, maybe you’ll be next?)
A long-awaited rule change, at least among motorsport fans, is the end of FanBoost.
FanBoost was conceived in the original Formula E season as a way to encourage fan participation. Fans can vote for their favorite driving force on social media and the 3 most sensible driving forces gained a brief boost that they can use at any time in the race.
While this rarely had much of an effect on racing, especially in recent years, as the impulses got shorter, many motorsport enthusiasts dismissed the series thinking that FanBoost bessullies its purity (as motorsport enthusiasts often say about the Array. . . almost everything).
As happens in each and every season and even mid-season, the drivers changed from one team to another and even the groups also made adjustments.
Defending champion Stoffel Vandoorne, last year’s winner with Mercedes, moved to DS Penske (formerly DS Techeetah), along with two-time champion Jean-Eric Vergne. Mercedes was the constructors’ champion last year, left the series and their team is now in the hands of McLaren.
In addition to replacing McLaren through Mercedes, we also had other team changes. Nissan took full ownership of the e. dams team, the ABT team is back with the CUPRA team after being lost last year due to the end of its relationship with Audi, DS severed ties with Techeetah and partnered with Penske, and Maserati took on the ROKiT Venturi team in its first return to racing as a manufacturer since the 1950s.
Several drivers have replaced groups or left the series (including veteran and veteran EV advocate Alexander Sims, who we’re not happy to have gone). But we have to talk about the two new drivers: Sacha Fenestraz and Jake Hughes.
Fenestraz competed in the final race of last season (replacing Giovinazzi after a hand injury), so he is necessarily a rookie this year. He is a former French Formula Renault Eurocup champion and has been a reserve driving force for Formula E for Jaguar in recent years. Stations.
Hughes has competed in several series and is a former BRDC Formula 4 champion, now known as the GB3 Championship, which is the single-seater racing category in Britain, where Hughes is from. He has been a reserve and progression driving force for the Mercedes team for more than two seasons and will begin racing this weekend with McLaren.
The race starts on Saturday, January 14 at 14:00 Mexico City time, noon Pacific Time, 15:00 ET and 20:00 UTC. The race will air on CBS Sports Network in the U. S. Schedule at 11:30 p. m. ET). The sessions will be streamed on YouTube.
If you are not in the US, you can check the Formula E online page to find out how to look in your country. Channel within days, although we do not know if they will publish full races there, since it turns out that it replaces seasons. temporada.
Jameson has been driving cars since 2009 and has been writing about them and blank energy for electrek. co since 2016.
You can tap it on jamie@electrek. co