FIA Formula-E championship

[Blew it]

Just a reminder, the first of ten rounds of Electric Grand Prix races televised on ITV4 tomorrow morning (Saturday) 0800-10.30 hrs.

The rather boxy 2.1 miles circuit has been built around the olympic "Birds Nest" stadium in Beijing. The final round ten will held in London 27th June 2015.

Interesting to note, the 320kg battery can be fully charged in just 50 minutes

FIA Formula-E championship

 

[tillson]

I was initially enthusiastic about this concept and hoped that it would succeed. Then I read that teams can score a performance advantage via a social media voting system. If true, it makes the whole thing pointless and not worth the electricity to power the cars or to bring my telly to life to even watch it. Apparently, the social media voting is to make the racing, "more inclusive" (which I think is the same thing as it being appealing to brain dead tw@ts. A bit like Jeremy Kyle's chav baiting appeals to a certain level of intellect). According to the same article, F1 only appeals to white men over 40 years of age and they are trying to capture a new audience. I think the article was in The Daily Wail.

I am going to stick to Scalextric for my electric racing.

 

[Cyclezee]

For goodness sake give it a chance, it's only the first race of a brand new formula and at least it is something new for white men over 40 to moan about.

I look forward to the day when electric powered vehicles replace the infernal combustion engine just like it replaced the steam engine, it's called progress and it doesn't happen overnight.

After all you still have the option of watching Jeremy Kyle....whoever he is

 

[flecc]

Sorry John, but that social media aspect does spoil it for me in the way that the excess of silly features has ruined F1.

What is wrong with these race authorities? Can't they just let cars and drivers race on equal terms? That worked for over 70 years and was infinitely more entertaining than any of these modern over-regulated versions.
.

 

[tillson]

For goodness sake give it a chance, it's only the first race of a brand new formula and at least it is something new for white men over 40 to moan about.

I look forward to the day when electric powered vehicles replace the infernal combustion engine just like it replaced the steam engine, it's called progress and it doesn't happen overnight.

After all you still have the option of watching Jeremy Kyle....whoever he is

I'm all for progress, but this isn't progress. It's dumbed down X Factor type trash. The concept of driving electric vehicle development through competition is sound, but the whole thing has been completely devalued by the social media aspect. What will the next gimmick be? Weeping monkeys giving the drivers unskilled blow jobs during the pit-stop? That should appeal.

 

[Blew it]

Finally! I found time to watch the race. First impression.....refreshingly different from F1, and that is the view of a non-grumpy male significantly older than forty years.

This is the first race, and already the car change-over might see a new racing strategy emerging. Sexual activity with animals will not be tolerated during the change-over, such activity could only possibly exist within the mind of one who clearly leads a somewhat unwholesome life style.

Another revealing characteristic was, how the perception of speed is enhanced by a screaming F1 V6 ic engine, even more so in the case of earlier 2.5 ltr V8 ic engines. Only the unfortunate crash in the final lap showed just how fast the cars were going. Driver safety systems are obviously up to F1 standards....and neither was the car enveloped in the predicted rapid discharge plasma ball. Drivers spitting their dummies out as a result of personal space-invasion remains unchanged.

One of the drivers mention how mini street circuits with potholes and other uneveness of the road surface shook his head about so much it affected his vision. (over-inflated tyres can also result in retinal detachment)

The absence of smelly-vision can only leave one wondering what pervading pong would be hanging over the circuit...perhaps the smell of "Amps" as opposed to the memory jogging Castrol R (or whatever they lubricate the moving bits with these days)

Judging by the Cheshire Cat grins on the drivers faces at the race end, it seems that Formula E is not so far removed from electrically assisted bicycles as some may think.

Now, what shall I watch next on the telly, "Grumpy old vicars telling jokes" or "Animal Magic"...decisions, decisions!

 

[RobF]

I'm all for progress, but this isn't progress. It's dumbed down X Factor type trash. The concept of driving electric vehicle development through competition is sound, but the whole thing has been completely devalued by the social media aspect. What will the next gimmick be? Weeping monkeys giving the drivers unskilled blow jobs during the pit-stop? That should appeal.

Tillson,

Instead of spouting ill-informed garbage, why not do a bit of research?

The social media 'driver boost' is gimmicky, but all it does is give a couple of drivers a single dose of extra power for a short period, rather like kers in F1.

I watched the highlights of the first race and the driver boost seemed to make no difference to the racing.

One of the drivers who had it, the lass, finished nearly last.

As regards the racing, I thought it was reasonable given the narrow and rather dull square circuit.

There were a couple of decent tussles, some overtaking, and a crash at the end when Prost cut across Nick Heidfeld, sending Heideld's car flying into the barrier.

We even had the obligatory wronged driver chasing across the track for a word with the other guy.

Al in all, a decent start to the series.

 

[Cyclezee]

I'm all for progress, but this isn't progress. It's dumbed down X Factor type trash. The concept of driving electric vehicle development through competition is sound, but the whole thing has been completely devalued by the social media aspect. What will the next gimmick be? Weeping monkeys giving the drivers unskilled blow jobs during the pit-stop? That should appeal.

I think you have made your point, Formula E is not for you.
Maybe you should stick to watching Jeremy Kyle, X Factor and whatever media the weeping monkeys are broadcast on

 

[flecc]

Mmmm. I'll give it a try, but I think I'm likely to end up sticking to Moto GP, real racing with no idiocy like DRS or social media selected boost akin to KERS.

Whether it helped a driver or not is surely beside the point, such an outsider intervention has no place in racing of any kind. What next, enabling spectators to cut the car performance of drivers not liked, the same thing surely?
.

 

[RobF]

Mmmm. I'll give it a try, but I think I'm likely to end up sticking to Moto GP, real racing with no idiocy like DRS or social media selected boost akin to KERS.

Whether it helped a driver or not is surely beside the point, such an outsider intervention has no place in racing of any kind. What next, enabling spectators to cut the car performance of drivers not liked, the same thing surely?
.

I'm not particularly in favour of it, but we were told all the drivers turn the wick up and down on their cars anyway with a view to battery capacity management.

One guy did an extra lap before changing cars, which meant he could give it full beans for longer in the second half of the race.

It's all new territory, but the commentator seemed to be saying some of the cars in the top places were slowing towards the end of the race.

Prost and Heidfeld managed their batteries better and were able to keep going flat out for longer.

They were in first and second on the last lap, but were denied their reward when one crashed into the other.

On today's evidence, driver boost is neither here nor there, and in general terms the way the rules control the power of the cars is probably less contrived than F1.

 

[flecc]

On today's evidence, driver boost is neither here nor there, and in general terms the way the rules control the power of the cars is probably less contrived than F1.

That's good to know, I just hope the intervention reduces rather than increases, as it's done in F1 to such a silly degree.

Obviously it's new territory so will take some while to settle into a worthwhile sport. So far I'm not confident that this or the racing e-motorcycles will succeed while the i.c. ones are still in competition, it's bit of an unequal struggle. They'll have the "green" audience, but that is still a small minority.
.

 

[tillson]

Finally! I found time to watch the race. First impression.....refreshingly different from F1, and that is the view of a non-grumpy male significantly older than forty years.

This is the first race, and already the car change-over might see a new racing strategy emerging. Sexual activity with animals will not be tolerated during the change-over, such activity could only possibly exist within the mind of one who clearly leads a somewhat unwholesome life style.

Another revealing characteristic was, how the perception of speed is enhanced by a screaming F1 V6 ic engine, even more so in the case of earlier 2.5 ltr V8 ic engines. Only the unfortunate crash in the final lap showed just how fast the cars were going. Driver safety systems are obviously up to F1 standards....and neither was the car enveloped in the predicted rapid discharge plasma ball. Drivers spitting their dummies out as a result of personal space-invasion remains unchanged.

One of the drivers mention how mini street circuits with potholes and other uneveness of the road surface shook his head about so much it affected his vision. (over-inflated tyres can also result in retinal detachment)

The absence of smelly-vision can only leave one wondering what pervading pong would be hanging over the circuit...perhaps the smell of "Amps" as opposed to the memory jogging Castrol R (or whatever they lubricate the moving bits with these days)

Judging by the Cheshire Cat grins on the drivers faces at the race end, it seems that Formula E is not so far removed from electrically assisted bicycles as some may think.

Now, what shall I watch next on the telly, "Grumpy old vicars telling jokes" or "Animal Magic"...decisions, decisions!

Thanks for the summary Blew it, the racing sounds promising. Done properly Formula E has potential to be exciting because the battery usage element, amongst other things, adds to the mix.

I simply don't understand the social media element. Why is it there and what is supposed to influence the voting? Setting men over 40 aside, because they don't matter, this broadly leaves females and teenagers;

1) The ladies, are they supposed to vote for the most handsome driver, so that they don't have to worry their pretty little heads about all the technical stuff?

2) Teenage boys, do they vote for the, "Gangsta Driver?"

3) Teenage girls, perhaps they vote for the driver who most frequently prompts the phrase, "he's like, Oh My God?" to be spoken (note the question intonation, it's important).

It's the fact that the people who have put Formula E together actually think that the social media voting is necessary to bring in a new audience. I can imagine them in a meeting discussing points 1, 2 and 3 above and deciding that this is how the public needs to be catered for. As I have already said in an earlier post, it devalues what is being done.

 

[tillson]

Tillson,

Instead of spouting ill-informed garbage, why not do a bit of research?

The social media 'driver boost' is gimmicky, but all it does is give a couple of drivers a single dose of extra power for a short period, rather like kers in F1.

In my first post I said,

"Then I read that teams can score a performance advantage via a social media voting system."

I'm sure there will be some night school reading classes for adults starting in your area during September.

 

[RobF]

In my first post I said,

"Then I read that teams can score a performance advantage via a social media voting system."

I'm sure there will be some night school reading classes for adults starting in your area during September.

Tillson,

You made two infantile posts before a wheel had even been turned in this series.

You know naff-all about it, yet profess to pass judgment.

You did the same in the Bosch thread bearings thread, lots of stupidly sarcastic posts, but no knowledge.

I tell you what, I will have a go at those reading classes if you take some on comprehension.

 

[JohnCade]

That's good to know, I just hope the intervention reduces rather than increases, as it's done in F1 to such a silly degree.

Obviously it's new territory so will take some while to settle into a worthwhile sport. So far I'm not confident that this or the racing e-motorcycles will succeed while the i.c. ones are still in competition, it's bit of an unequal struggle. They'll have the "green" audience, but that is still a small minority.
.

Not sure I agree about the tightness of the regs in F 1 being that silly. If they aren't tight then the teams full as they are of talented and advantage taking people will get the jump on the other teams and gain an unfair advantage.

For instance we saw that at the start of 2009 when the Brawn team interpreted the rules and used a double diffuser at the rear. That was a major advantage which other teams had looked at and thought illegal so didn't do. They romped away with the first half of the season until the others developed and fitted the same part. That one small aero part made all the other cars completely uncompetitive against the Brawns.

F 1 is a money making show for the owners of the rights, and the works teams are in it for worldwide exposure and to sell their road cars primarily. So a series of processions as happened a few years ago with Ferrari outspending the rest by a factor of two and no racing allowed between teammates, with Schumacher having to win every race. Or the Red Bulls in the last few seasons taking advantage of the engine development freeze to make it into an aero formula where the cars became ground running aeroplanes all with very similar power; and they happen to have the best aero man in the business, is bad for racing and audiences, and the bottom line.

Some of the stuff like DRS is artifical yes. But the alternative could be no overtaking at all when for many years it's been impossible to get close enough to get a run because of the wash from the dirty air of the car in front. The solution is to drastically cut the aero effect and make it more about mechanical grip and engine power again as it once was. But the problem with that is unless it was done in all the formulae even F 3 cars with wings could be lapping in quicker times than the much more powerful F 1 cars without; and how can you then sell it as the pinnacle of motor racing if the cars lower down the pyramid seem to be faster?

F 1 is anything but boring at the moment unlike the recent past, and the current rules are producing very good racing between teammates at least; and the sort of needle not seen since Prost/Senna. Next year the other engine suppliers will have learnt from what Mercedes did and their petrol/ electric hybrids will be more of a match for the Merc power unit.

 

[tillson]

Tillson,

You made two infantile posts before a wheel had even been turned in this series.

I tell you what, I will have a go at those reading classes if you take some on comprehension.

I think you will find that was one post. If I find a decent comprehension class I'll let you know. I'll do my best to make sure that it doesn't clash with your reading night.

I was simply making a point regarding the ridiculous social media aspect of the racing series by using examples which were exaggerated in their ridiculousness. This seems to have passed above your head.

As you now seem to have appointed yourself as the Forum Magistrate, do we need to seek your approval prior to pressing the Post Reply button?

 

[flecc]

Not sure I agree about the tightness of the regs in F 1 being that silly. If they aren't tight then the teams full as they are of talented and advantage taking people will get the jump on the other teams and gain an unfair advantage.

For instance we saw that at the start of 2009 when the Brawn team interpreted the rules and used a double diffuser at the rear. That was a major advantage which other teams had looked at and thought illegal so didn't do. They romped away with the first half of the season until the others developed and fitted the same part. That one small aero part made all the other cars completely uncompetitive against the Brawns.

That illustrates what is wrong, the existence of unnecessary rules. If there was no such rule others could adopt a similar solution. Racing is about the competition of drivers and cars, and the development of the latter should not be deliberately impeded. Long ago when F1 had few rules other than the engine size we did have great racing and far more technical interest. Now they are near clones due to the rigidity of the rules and those rules are commonly introduced to deal with the problems that other rules create.

If the rules now are logical, then it follows that the same rules should apply to drivers. The height, weight, reach, lifting ability, reaction times etc should all be specified within strict outer limits to ensure that there is no unfair competition.

The rules are often senseless anyway. It's ok to say what the permitted engine size is, but why dictate how many cylinders the engine has to have? Why should we be denied the variety of interest that such as the BRM 16 cylinder engine introduced, or the sight of six wheel cars from Tyrell and others?

Unlike you I don't enjoy today's F1, since knowing just how contrived it is destroys any interest or excitement in what is going on.
.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Personally, I think the idea has some potential, but needs a bit more development.

First, you need to replace the drivers with celebrities that have have passed their sell-by date, like Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry. You put them all in a house, where the audience can watch them all slagging each other off and getting up their own arses. Then, periodically, you put them all in electric racing cars to race against each other.

The cars' motors are controlled by an audience voting system. The (ex) celebrity can only steer and brake. The brakes aren't fully effective. They can only slow the car down a bit. By default, once the race starts, the motor drives the car at a speed, which is just on the boarder of safe driving, so the (ex)celebrity has to concentrate on keeping the car on the track, bearing in mind that the brakes can only slow it a bit for the corners. The audience can then vote by text at 50p a time, to reduce the effectiveness of the brakes and speed up the motor. If enough vote, you get to the point where the car can't be controlled anymore, so it crashes. There's no winners (apart from the audience), but there are losers - the ones that don't get eliminated.

After the race, any surviving drivers (losers) are taken back to the house and are replenished by the never ending queue of others waiting to resurrect their flagged career, so that they can continue slagging each other off and getting up each other's and their own arses.

I think that would make electric car racing very popular, and at the same time should be able to reduce the number of other programmes on the TV featuring celebrities, i.e. about 99% of them.

 

[tillson]

Personally, I think the idea has some potential, but needs a bit more development.

First, you need to replace the drivers with celebrities that have have passed their sell-by date, like Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry. You put them all in a house, where the audience can watch them all slagging each other off and getting up their own arses. Then, periodically, you put them all in electric racing cars to race against each other.

The cars' motors are controlled by an audience voting system. The (ex) celebrity can only steer and brake. The brakes aren't fully effective. They can only slow the car down a bit. By default, once the race starts, the motor drives the car at a speed, which is just on the boarder of safe driving, so the (ex)celebrity has to concentrate on keeping the car on the track, bearing in mind that the brakes can only slow it a bit for the corners. The audience can then vote by text at 50p a time, to reduce the effectiveness of the brakes and speed up the motor. If enough vote, you get to the point where the car can't be controlled anymore, so it crashes. There's no winners (apart from the audience), but there are losers - the ones that don't get eliminated.

After the race, any surviving drivers (losers) are taken back to the house and are replenished by the never ending queue of others waiting to resurrect their flagged career, so that they can continue slagging each other off and getting up each other's and their own arses.

I think that would make electric car racing very popular, and at the same time should be able to reduce the number of other programmes on the TV featuring celebrities, i.e. about 99% of them.

Can I suggest canned laughter when a car crashes, together with a splash screen saying, "SMASH!!!!" which is displayed for a period of 0.5 seconds, like on the 1960s Batman fight sequences? Or a dubbed in, overly loud, "BOING!" when two cars collide? If a car suffers a technical fault which requires it to withdraw from the race, a "wap - wap - woooaar" tune could be played. And Harry Hill or Ant & Dec commentate.

I like this idea better than the monkey thing. It seemed wrong at the time of writing.

 

[JohnCade]

That illustrates what is wrong, the existence of unnecessary rules. If there was no such rule others could adopt a similar solution. Racing is about the competition of drivers and cars, and the development of the latter should not be deliberately impeded. Long ago when F1 had few rules other than the engine size we did have great racing and far more technical interest. Now they are near clones due to the rigidity of the rules and those rules are commonly introduced to deal with the problems that other rules create.

If the rules now are logical, then it follows that the same rules should apply to drivers. The height, weight, reach, lifting ability, reaction times etc should all be specified within strict outer limits to ensure that there is no unfair competition.

The rules are often senseless anyway. It's ok to say what the permitted engine size is, but why dictate how many cylinders the engine has to have? Why should we be denied the variety of interest that such as the BRM 16 cylinder engine introduced, or the sight of six wheel cars from Tyrell and others?

Unlike you I don't enjoy today's F1, since knowing just how contrived it is destroys any interest or excitement in what is going on.
.

Actually there have always or almost always been tight regulations in every GP era. The current engine regs were brought in because the manufacturers like Daimler and Honda wanted to have power units applicable to future road cars. So energy recovery and hybrid electric batteries for cities, and good fuel consumption. They simply weren't prepared to produce 20000 rpm screaming fuel hungry engines with no road application anymore. Just for F1.

One of the few time there wasn't was tight regulation was in the thirties with the Formula Libre 750 kg formula. They could build what they wanted as long as the cars weighed less than 750 kg. Of course whoever got the best answer to that design question would have the fastest car by a mile; and the others would have no chance of catching up because it would mean starting from scratch.

Mercedes and to a lesser extent Auto Union got the answer right then and produced 6 litre supercharged cars capable of nearly two hundred miles an hour. Faster than that in streamlined record breaking form. It's sometime seen as a golden age, but the actual racing was dire. How could it not be when one car was so superior to the others having been conceived from a totally different perspective.

It's only because the regs are so tight that it's possible to have modern F1 at all. A free for all would just have one team that was miles faster than the others and the manufactures, and the public, and the sponsors would all walk away as the TV ratings went south. These days it would probably mean even more aero and ground effect cars with no chance of any following car even getting close due to the dirty air too. The fastest way around almost all circuits is to go the aero route. Particularly with modern french curves tracks.