Made a seat today for the Trulli team (I didn't get to do Jarno though, but chatted to him throughout the day), and then mucked in as a volunteer mechanic. They started building a car yesterday, and got 5 laps out of it today. Gave them a round of applause for their efforts.
Best thing to do is just to accept the fact that world and technologies move on and electric things or any other alternative power source is the future of anything, including motorsport.
Heavy multi-litre V8/12 days is a thing of yesterday. Get over it.
Heavy multi-litre V8/12 days is a thing of yesterday. Get over it.
They sound like the RC racing I used to do LOL
Fordie
Except in V8 Supercars...
edit: Oh, and various GT3 series.
I had major league racing in mind. I can't give a single **** about "I never made it/made it in F1 but failed" racing series around with all these V8's and lots of power and 100 more things some people are complaining about nowadays
So you don't have any interest in Formula E either then?
Probably won't follow it because of the reason of shit grid, but the whole idea is ok.
Apart from:
- Car changes during race (because of limitation in battery range) - terrible idea because range is probably the first problem most members of the public would name about electric cars. Having visual confirmation of that in every race (in the first season, at least, we'll see how the batteries get developed as time goes on).
- Mediocre performance - ~180bhp equivalent during the races in a car that weighs around 800kg means they won't be quick. In addition to that, they look like they won't have a lot of tyre or aero grip. In the clips we've seen so far (including the pre-launch testing and footage from the Donington test) they have yet to look fast. Unless the average viewer switches on and sees some excitement they're going to be turning off quite quickly. Visible speed (cars punching out of corners or having swift changes of direction at high speed) would be handy at keeping casuals engaged.
- 'Fanboost' - The most popular drivers will get free push-to-pass in the races (equivalent to roughly 90bhp extra over the ~180bhp normal race performance). I get the idea of trying to engage the audience on social media, but really?
- Spec series for first season - They had a great opportunity to actually have some real competition with technical development (since this series, perhaps more than any other major series could genuinely be a technology race). Instead they chose to have a spec series for the first season, meaning everyone's stuck with the same mediocre performance/range.
I think the spec-series choice is to give the series a good financial foundation before they start asking teams and manufacturers to start investing big. Who is going to invest in electronic racing if it turns out to be a massive dud.
Fanboost, makes sense. Motorsport is becoming so far from the minds of young people the series has to engage people in new ways. I don't 'like' it, but Formula E isn't going to be success if it tries to attract orthodox racing fans. There's just not enough about that will want to watch.
They do look slow though. I guess the FIA put in performance limits to make sure GP2, GP3, WSR etc... all remain relevant and viable. If Formula E started lapping close to them speeds suddenly you have a class that all the younguns want to spend daddies millions on.
Fanboost, makes sense. Motorsport is becoming so far from the minds of young people the series has to engage people in new ways. I don't 'like' it, but Formula E isn't going to be success if it tries to attract orthodox racing fans. There's just not enough about that will want to watch.
They do look slow though. I guess the FIA put in performance limits to make sure GP2, GP3, WSR etc... all remain relevant and viable. If Formula E started lapping close to them speeds suddenly you have a class that all the younguns want to spend daddies millions on.
The second you have artificial methods of improving performance you lose all credibility. Fan boost? Really? Why not just give one of those plastic celebs a spot and then make sure they have twice the performance and range? You would get the moronic big brother followers every race you hold. Still crap but BIG viewing figures.
I have one more improvement suggestion. After the race the top-3 could be decided by a boxing match between the team personnel. 3 teams in - one team out. Thunderdome! To add little spice the team personnel can use any piece of the car as weapon that they can remove during the podium driver interviews.
Bit of a shame they had to go for that "fan boost" thing. Might be a hit for some demographics, but it's really marginalising them from many long time motorsports fans.
Apart from that the concept looks pretty good right now. Strong grid, healthy teams, big-time sponsors, big cities. Mind you, the "street festival" concept is more or less what keeps IndyCar afloat right now(with Indy of course). The same thing with even bigger cities and electric engines(much easier sell than noisy and smelly petrol engines among the big-city downtown crowd), it has the potential to be pretty big.
Apart from that the concept looks pretty good right now. Strong grid, healthy teams, big-time sponsors, big cities. Mind you, the "street festival" concept is more or less what keeps IndyCar afloat right now(with Indy of course). The same thing with even bigger cities and electric engines(much easier sell than noisy and smelly petrol engines among the big-city downtown crowd), it has the potential to be pretty big.
Every new piece of information makes me go "wtf" 
But seriousy:
If you were to design the series, how would you do it?
But remember it must be low-cost and interessting to non-motorsport viewers. So something like "full electric LMP-1" would not work..
Cars:
I think already to have such formula-styled cars is bit bad decision. To casual viewers it will just look like some smaller version of F1. But it will of course never be as fast.
There already exists this french series for electric cars:
Racing can be closer than with openwheel cars, cars can get sideways, generally much more "action" that is attractive to viewers.
Or if that is too boring look than have some buggy styled like the ROC buggy thing:
Instead of speed, put focus on acceleration and handling.
For fast openwheel cars you need long straights but smaller, more agile cars would be much better suited to race in stadiums or temporary street circuits in cities.
Electric motors in each wheel, with nice torque and controlled by electronics could maybe make for some impressive manouvers?
In theory one could do some moves that other cars simply can not do, like driving reverse in same speed as forward. Or spinning in place by turning wheels of one side in other direction...
Which brings us to....
Qualifying:
Ithink none of the audience that would "like" a driver on facebook or "sometimes" watches F1 cares about qualifying.
So instead of "boring" time trial have them run some parcours: The Ken Block videos are insanely popular on youtube, even with non-motorsport people.
Watching the cars drift around some parcour and whatnot would make the "boring" qualifying worth watching.
For example this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA2rMQbx3II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9UVV0XuiDk
The car in both video is not very spectacular.
Neither is the speed.
But the video is still fascinating: the driver's precision is something that anyone can admire.
In F1 if driver A is 9/100s faster than driver B around some track, that needs bit background understanding why that happend and to find it interessting.
But anyone can understand if driver A has hit less cones than driver B, it is in a way more comprehensible.
Fan interaction:
"Fan boost" is obviously beyond silly. If it absolutely has to stay, then in a less drastic form. Maybe have the most-voted drivers get a second chance at qualifying. Extra catch could be that the 2nd time counts, even if it is worse.
Race:
Not every race has to be the same format.
Try to have races "as close to the people" as possible. For example if in some city it is not possible to have a full-grid race due to safety or whatever: Then have timed stages like in rallye. Or have 1-vs-1 shootout races.
But seriousy:
If you were to design the series, how would you do it?
But remember it must be low-cost and interessting to non-motorsport viewers. So something like "full electric LMP-1" would not work..
Cars:
I think already to have such formula-styled cars is bit bad decision. To casual viewers it will just look like some smaller version of F1. But it will of course never be as fast.
There already exists this french series for electric cars:
Racing can be closer than with openwheel cars, cars can get sideways, generally much more "action" that is attractive to viewers.
Or if that is too boring look than have some buggy styled like the ROC buggy thing:
Instead of speed, put focus on acceleration and handling.
For fast openwheel cars you need long straights but smaller, more agile cars would be much better suited to race in stadiums or temporary street circuits in cities.
Electric motors in each wheel, with nice torque and controlled by electronics could maybe make for some impressive manouvers?
In theory one could do some moves that other cars simply can not do, like driving reverse in same speed as forward. Or spinning in place by turning wheels of one side in other direction...
Which brings us to....
Qualifying:
Ithink none of the audience that would "like" a driver on facebook or "sometimes" watches F1 cares about qualifying.
So instead of "boring" time trial have them run some parcours: The Ken Block videos are insanely popular on youtube, even with non-motorsport people.
Watching the cars drift around some parcour and whatnot would make the "boring" qualifying worth watching.
For example this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA2rMQbx3II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9UVV0XuiDk
The car in both video is not very spectacular.
Neither is the speed.
But the video is still fascinating: the driver's precision is something that anyone can admire.
In F1 if driver A is 9/100s faster than driver B around some track, that needs bit background understanding why that happend and to find it interessting.
But anyone can understand if driver A has hit less cones than driver B, it is in a way more comprehensible.
Fan interaction:
"Fan boost" is obviously beyond silly. If it absolutely has to stay, then in a less drastic form. Maybe have the most-voted drivers get a second chance at qualifying. Extra catch could be that the 2nd time counts, even if it is worse.
Race:
Not every race has to be the same format.
Try to have races "as close to the people" as possible. For example if in some city it is not possible to have a full-grid race due to safety or whatever: Then have timed stages like in rallye. Or have 1-vs-1 shootout races.
I belive that the X Games tried the gymkhana format at some point, but I doubt it was any more(or less) popular than their others car racing-based events.
Apart from the "fan boost" thing, I think FE's current event format is good. There is a reason why so many series ape the F1 event format, it's because most casual viewers are familiar with it, and can grasp the big lines almost instantly. There is also a big chance that you just end up shooting yourself in the foot by trying something out-of-the-box(see again: FE "fan boost") They are already doing a big-ish leap by going electric, probably a good thing to not re-invent the wheel on sporting regulations.
BTW, I don't belive that the Andros electric cars have ever been a big draw to the public, even though they've had a few big name drivers at the wheel, and the occasional celebrity.
Indeed. Anyway I still can't imagine this being the future. I keep on believing in Hydrogen! (And hoping) Although I will keep on driving my 3.2 V6 petrol engine as long as possible.
Sometimes on youtube there are videos of it with logos from some TV companies (or blocked due to claims from TV companies) so it seems to be on TV at least sometimes...which is already bit of a sucess for any racing beside F1. I think the racing on ice limits it a bit: standing in cold is not something for large audience. Also it is seems happy with being limited to France (as far I know) whereas Formula E is international and has bigger budget (?)
Indeed true. But maybe also the risk of creating something that is just a bad compromise?
Think that is happening at the moment..for motorsport fans it is "too silly" to be interessting, for casual viewers it might not be "different enough."
The TT Zero bikes at the Isle of Man aren't particularly popular either. They've seen consistent performance development since 2010, but they still look quite slow compared to the petrol-powered bikes and there doesn't seem to be a lot of engagement with the fans.
It is admirable that they have gone full electric and not put a small petrol engine there and made it hybrid but in the end all that seems to be happening is that the preconceptions about eletric cars are just strengthened. They are slow, heavy and unexciting. And not even eco friendly.
The one single electric car that has been even slightly exciting is the nordschleife electric lap record by toyota in 2011 I think. But even that 7:22 time is kind of good / kind of bad when you think that the radical sr8 (which is the same chassis toyota used I think?) has done lap time of 6:55. What electric cars need is a proof of concept that they can be faster than similar normal cars.
Very few are interested about steam car racing because they are slow and heavy. They are unique and for the engineering types there is some attraction in the technology of the cars but as racing cars they are still slow. It could even happen that electric cars just are never going to be interesting for racing. Everybody seems to think that electric is not good at the moment but in the future it will be the only thing. I doubt it. It will take massive amounts of money to get the battery technology to such level that it makes sense from racing perspective. Then it needs the money perspective taken care as well.
Of course rules can be changed to make any kind of engine competitive. The rules were bend for diesels so that they could be competitive (and probably still are?). But are there people who are inspired and awed by diesel race engines? No. But there are people who are interested about the hybrid technology because it adds something. It adds power and that is exciting. The additional weight is something never gets mentioned and in some ways the added complexity of hybrids is exciting as well. But electric and diesels? Meh.
A lot of people watch boxing. A lot of people watch ufc. Some morons even watch wwe (sorry)(not really). Would anyone watch boxing where the boxers move slowly, punch like little girls and can only do 20 second rounds?
The one single electric car that has been even slightly exciting is the nordschleife electric lap record by toyota in 2011 I think. But even that 7:22 time is kind of good / kind of bad when you think that the radical sr8 (which is the same chassis toyota used I think?) has done lap time of 6:55. What electric cars need is a proof of concept that they can be faster than similar normal cars.
Very few are interested about steam car racing because they are slow and heavy. They are unique and for the engineering types there is some attraction in the technology of the cars but as racing cars they are still slow. It could even happen that electric cars just are never going to be interesting for racing. Everybody seems to think that electric is not good at the moment but in the future it will be the only thing. I doubt it. It will take massive amounts of money to get the battery technology to such level that it makes sense from racing perspective. Then it needs the money perspective taken care as well.
Of course rules can be changed to make any kind of engine competitive. The rules were bend for diesels so that they could be competitive (and probably still are?). But are there people who are inspired and awed by diesel race engines? No. But there are people who are interested about the hybrid technology because it adds something. It adds power and that is exciting. The additional weight is something never gets mentioned and in some ways the added complexity of hybrids is exciting as well. But electric and diesels? Meh.
A lot of people watch boxing. A lot of people watch ufc. Some morons even watch wwe (sorry)(not really). Would anyone watch boxing where the boxers move slowly, punch like little girls and can only do 20 second rounds?
That's one for the signature...
Perhaps instead of a fan boost, they could just have a handful of landmines on the circuit. triggered by fan boredom. Problem is that I can see this after about lap eight or so.
From what I saw last week, lap 2.
And for those who survive, they could line an army of clowns along the track, throwing cakes at them...
I was really, really hoping this would be an interesting series to follow, but these kind of rules just killed the desire
Well the cars may be slow and boring but the racing can still be good. With so little power (how much torque are they making?) passing may be difficult because they still have lots of grip. On the other hand the racing could end up looking a bit like btcc with lots of body contact which will probably have its own appeal to people who like crashes and bumping other people off the track. The cars are not really suited for that though.
I think the fan tweet feature should be tied to all fanboy arguments, imagine an Xbox car vs and PS3 car, or a Forza car vs a Gran Turismo car.... the result would be spectacular.
Some decent drivers signed up. Rather than gimmicks they should put more energy management into the hands of the drivers and make sure all the information is displayed on an app so the fans could see Senna 5 seconds ahead of Heidfeld but also that he's used however many Kj more etc etc.
Formula E
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