Formula E racing series launchedOpen Wheel 

  • Thread starter Thread starter ECGadget
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The 14-15 season will contest 10 rounds in 9 cities meaning that one of the rounds will now be a double header.
 
disinfected
As much as I resepect Niki Lauda, I just watched the race and thought it was rather exciting. That was the most intense final lap I've seen lately.
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Same here. All due respect to Lauda (I still love watching him in the 1975 Nurburgring race) and indeed his era of motorsport gives him huge bragging rights. But... I enjoyed the first Formula E race more than some of the F1 races I've seen this season.
 
It sorts of reminds me of the Red Bull Jr car in GT6. Add 200 kg ballast and cut the power down to about 200 BHP and the performance should be sort of similar. Of course, it wouldn't have an electric engine...
 
Miami Layout
miami_animated.gif
 
Brutaka
SO will a part of the teams be stationed at the start/finish while the pit crew at the pits or will all be at the pits but nobody at the start finish? :odd:
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Yeah, the poor guys who have to start the cars and the grid girls will have to run half the circuit on the pace lap :lol:
 
legacyMACHINE
He's just wrong. The cars look better than the modern F1 racers, the cars are still fast (3 seconds to 60, 155 mph) and from the first race, it most definitely is Motorsport. Innovation to come in 2015.
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How can he possibly be wrong?
He stated an opinion when asked for it... To not agree is fine but just becasue you happen to disagree doesn't make his opinion 'wrong'.
 
Brutaka
Miami Layout
miami_animated.gif
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Roughly half the circuit is the old Bicentennial Park layout used from 1986-1995, except it's going clockwise (the direction used for the 1995 CART event). The infield park section has been demolished in the past few years, so they can't use that.

Biscayne Boulevard is a tad bumpy, but that's because of the paver sections inlaid on some of the intersections and parking lot areas paralleling US Route 1 through that area. The road bed tarmac itself is quite smooth, because South Florida is rather immune to potholes and settling.

Otherwise, it looks like a boring circuit; there's zero curves besides all those 90 degree corners (not surprising for that area's roads). But perhaps that's best for showing off the thrust of electric motors.

Pit lane isn't really in the same area as the old circuit, since the American Airlines Arena is situated there. Start/finish line is now on Biscayne...looks like they borrowed the idea from the old Anderstorp track in Sweden?
 
baldgye
How can he possibly be wrong?
He stated an opinion when asked for it... To not agree is fine but just becasue you happen to disagree doesn't make his opinion 'wrong'.
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I tend to use... Overstated(?) language a lot. Basically, I give an extreme word when I don't really need it.
 
Found these bits interesting:
Not much is “open” in the first year of Formula E competition but for the first development year, season 2, the teams can address the electric motors, the power electronics control of those motors, the gearbox, the control strategies that operate the motor and the power electronics. There are other bits and pieces but the group elected “to retain the basic Williams battery for year 2. We spoke to a number of other battery manufacturers and it became apparent it would take until season 3 to do anything significant as far as battery development goes. Really, you’re looking at an 18-month program [for development] and we’ve had nine months” thus far.
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“We keep referring to it as a battery, but the way the rules are written, it’s an energy storage system so it could be a battery, a flywheel and it could be a hybrid of all of them… “
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“The regulations allow us to run up to two motors, so potentially, you can say I don’t need a gearbox at all; I just need some kind of way to get underway, so using a direct drive with some kind of differential, mechanical or electric, might be the way to go. You’re never going to precisely control both motors," he said. "We’ll see… “
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Sounds like we could see some really interesting solutions in the next couple of years. The rules mean we could see a teams go in a whole bunch of different directions.
 
Probably to make sure all the cities can get their circuits ready In time and to increase the length of the series.
 
The Buenos Aires Eprix will take place soon, here's an article about it http://www.fiaformulae.com/en/news/...-formula-e-with-official-launch-ceremony.aspx
What interested me most about this article was this paragraph:
"Buenos Aires will also see the debut of the first Greenpower event as a support race on the Formula E schedule, designed to promote sustainable engineering to young people. The project sees students from local schools designing and building their own small-scale electric race car, which will then compete on the full Formula E circuit."
I really like how Formula E is a community racing series, it's even having students build their own cars for support events, how fantastic. I really hope I can go to the Long Beach race.
 
Next weekend is Round 2 of the 2014-2015 Formula E Championship on the streets of Putrajaya, Malaysia. Interesting-looking course. More info:

http://www.fiaformulae.com/en/calendar/2014-putrajaya/putrajaya-circuit.aspx

Pretty lovely city from the pictures I've seen of Putrajaya. Then again, I'm more used to Kuala Lumpur than I am most any other Malaysian city. This should still be a pretty cool event. I wonder how this race will be treated. The race in Beijing was a slight indication of what this series is mostly about. I wonder what will happen once the 2nd Round of the series rolls around...
 

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