Reply With QuoteThere's no noise!Originally Posted by rgee
Although bored with F1 now the sound is a big part of the spectacle.
Just been watching some of the Formula E at Battersea on the TV. So the driver's come into the pits and I'm ready for the car to be jacked up and tyres changed, but they park up jump out of one car and into an identical one! What the.............!! I'm guessing its because the battery does not last the whole race so they change the whole car but doesn't that double the cost of the formula. There were some ex F1 drivers in there (Senna, Piquet Jr, Buemi, Chandhook) but it just wasn't the same.
There's no noise!
Although bored with F1 now the sound is a big part of the spectacle.
Cheers,
Neil.
On the way home from the 'e-prix' at Battersea. It was a great day out, with some properly exciting racing, a British winner (admittedly by a technicality) and a fantastically accessible format (great to see all the drivers out for the autograph session).
But...... no noise! Although the noise they make is amazing, I do agree with you; I missed the stomach hitting grunt of F1.
That said, I'll go again next year!
Never seen this, but when I told the Mrs that they have to change cars halfway through because the battery goes flat she just laughed! About sums it up really...what is the point of this exactly?
Watched this on the box and it was quite exciting. I wished though that certain parts of the track were wider as the way it was just made overtaking impossible or dangerous from a collision point of view.
Son: I hate mango
Me: how do you know, you've never tried it?
Son: I just do
Go on then, answer the question: what is the point of it?
What is the point of anything?
Just like managing tyres is part of F1 (what's the point?), managing your energy is part of Formula E. Case in point when Sarrazin ran out of energy, or when Piquet Jr did 2 more laps on his fist car.
But more importantly, the research Formula E brings to competition means that we're much more likely to see significant advances than if it was left to a fairly apathetic industry
What is the point of any racing?
From my point of view it's an interesting technical formula which has provided some exciting racing.
Changing the cars halfway through because of battery life will probably be a thing of the past in a few years time.
It was noticed at Le Mans this year that formula E drivers drove more efficiently than other drivers whist maintaining similar race paces.
I personally am looking forward to next year's championship more than F1.
I was there yesterday as a guest of one of the teams, booze was good, food was good, racing was rubbish
This. Autosport in general is the source of a huge amount of road car technology advances (suspension, safety, brakes, fuel efficiency etc). The technology I saw today WILL trickle down to road cars in the not too distant future
If you want to develop road car relevant technology quickly you get the finest engineering brains on the planet to compete against each other.
And a high proportion of the finest engineering brains on the planet work in motor sport.
Yes, the racing in Formula E is uninspiring, as is the sound made by the cars, and it's a formula which the FIA dreamed up in order to show that they do care about motor sport's carbon footprint or something, but the advances in battery and regeneration technologies brought about by Formula E, Endurance racing and (whisper it) Formula 1 are very relevant to the cars which we will drive in the future and which will use less fossil fuel. So we'll just have to get used to it.
Not from these cars, a bucket of money was thrown at it, the parts were out sourced, existing Renault chassis, Williams drive trains etc etc, nothing will move on until it becomes a free for all in two years time,
I was there yesterday, having been at goodwood on Saturday. No contest with regard to what was more entertaining. The lack of noise and outright speed killed it for me.
No noise? I must be part dog or something because on the occaisions I've watched it all I can here is a high-pitched whine, reminds of a dentists drill. Pretty horrible listening and enough, for me, to turn off. I did catch a few laps on Sun though on the TV, looked to be as exciting, if not better, than watching F1 lately.
So because tortoise ´racing´ is less boring than slugs slugging it out, tortoises walking are exciting.
The proof that all is relative indeed!
Watched it for a few minutes before I got bored.
It made me think of a full size Scalextric race set!
It all illustrates the current state of F1: Less exciting than a Scalextric game.
Speed will come with time...
About the noise, an opportunity for car stereo manufacturers to get in on the party and strap on a suitably loud system playing formula 1 tunes at 1000watts. You could make it sound even better with extra base. Of course all the energy required would mean 3 car changes.
Perhaps they should introduce refuelling (recharging) and everyone can go home and watch the rest of the race the day after!Lol
Or drop in battery's / packs that can be changed at pit stops ?
Cheers..
Jase
I went on Sunday, I don't have time to do a full review now, but it was at least interesting. I have previously seen FE on TV and been fairly uninspired and I agree that on TV the lack of sound is problematic, sounds are an important part of the experience. However up close - and you do get up close, I think they sound great. Especially at the end of a straight.
There is a lot of potential for this catagory, but there are a LOT of issues as well.
Think I probably managed to watch 5 minutes on TV, it wasn't the lack of engine sound that got me (I knew there wouldn't be any)
it was what sounded like a dreadful rattling bodywork sound they did seem to make.
I did manage to watch about an hour of Goodwood though, that's more like it, and hearing the V8 Ferrari and McLaren going up the hill
really highlighted that F1 does need to sort itself out in this respect. I'm almost more looking forward to watching(hearing) the GP2 cars at Silverstone next week.
One thing thay really annoyed me was this "fan boost". Let's all vote for our favourite drivers and give them an unfair advantage. Kind of cheapened the race a bit.
Saw a quick picture of this in my RSS feed yesterday. Going to have to take a look into this. Although the car swap sounds a bit "pony".
The fan boost idea is embarrassing.
I caught the last race on TV and was reasonably impressed. The lack of speed is odd at first but I didn't notice it after a while as there was plenty of action in the 2nd half of the race. It reminded me a bit of the Ginetta Juniors series that supports the BTCC. They're slow but there's always lots of wheel banging action in the races.
I was gripped by the end as the championship went down to the wire and almost changed hands at the last couple of corners.
Like others have said Fan Boost is a nonsense. I can see that they're using it to try to grab the attention of a younger audience through social media but it's a step too far. They should give everyone 2 boosts per race.
The other thing I didn't like was giving points for fastest laps. The championship could have been decided by this which would have been a real anti-climax.
Also it was odd to see the race leader cross the line first with their allocated energy level at 0% and then be disqualified (they have reserve energy to ensure they don't stop on track). It would be better if first car past the line wins but if someone uses all their allocated energy on the last lap they start to gradually loose top end power (with a warning light flashing) to make it easier for those behind to pass.
There should also be some support races - maybe even TT Zero bikes?
It's not a perfect series by any means but it's different enough for there to be a place for it and the city locations mean that it's attracting different spectators who wouldn't normally go to a race. The second season will show if it's got any potential longevity or is just a novelty.
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