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:angel:
There is always milk that needs delivering.
Eight manufacturers to enter Formula E next season
For the inaugural 2014/2015 season, the 10 Formula E teams all compete using identical single-seaters – the Spark-Renault SRT_01E – utilising a powertrain by McLaren Electronic Systems. From the 2015/2016 season, the series will become an open championship allowing manufacturers to pursue their own in-house innovations, beginning with the development of bespoke powertrains.
In order to limit costs and promote investment and innovation in the most important areas, the manufacturers’ scope is initially limited to the powertrain – specifically the e-motor, the inverter, the gearbox and the cooling system. All other parts on the cars will remain as they are, with the aim being to prevent costly aerodynamic developments.
Under this scenario, FE should not really cease. First of all, there is a ton of competent open wheel racers who had nowhere to go after F1. FE is a nice refuge for them. Also, FE is a much lower cost formula, so a lot of teams with talented staff can afford to remain in the series even without hundred million budgets. Even if Formula 1 copies and adopts the best innovations of FE, I think FE will stick around. We need a second top-level open wheel series to absorb the open wheel drivers, spectators, and teams who couldn't make it in the cruel and materialistic world of F1. (At some point I thought that IndyCar should be this secondary open wheel series, but it clearly failed at that by now).
-Citroen has tested its Season2 engine. They are helping Virgin Racing with the new engine via their DS program. Cool!
-BMW said they will only join when the battery lasts the whole 45 min race
-Andretti is not developing engines with Honda (it was rumored)
-Audi is out for now (producing the engine), theres other company taking over the ABT engine named Schaeffler.
-No one knows what engines will AmlinAguri and Dragon use next season yet. They could keep the current McLaren or use any of the other 8 new programs.
Uruguay and Long Beach may not continue in the schedule for season2.
Paris and Mexico could be added.
HOng Kong, Kazakistain, Montreal should appear for season 3
Japan is one of the places where FE audience is the higher
Sweden, Norway, Estonia and Japan are the top4 biggest Electric Car market/consumers
Sorry for the bad english, again
Thanks for your update on Formula E development. Would be nice to have some more discussion here.
I am quite pleased with the first season. Of course, there are still some problems, such as very short battery life-time. But first of all, it is a great achievement to create a completely new series with a new type of car out of nothing within two years. Remember, they developed an entirely new car, and had to build 40 of them in a short time. The car is quite good and reliable. Then they had to find 10 teams and 20 drivers. Also here, they found good manufacturers and teams with experience in various racing series. And a great selection of drivers. And then they had to find 10 cities that were willing to host a race in the city centre. We have seen some stunning locations, Moscow last week was my favourite, racing directly next to the Kremlin and Red Square. But I also liked Punta del Este basically next to the beach.
And now I am really excited to see the new developments. Really looking forward to see the progress made in terms of speed and energy consumption. Actually, I find this the most interesting point of the series, the big development leaps that we will probably see each year.
I've got a little frustrated cuz FIA just banned the plans of Citroen to bring a CVT gearbox for season 2 (with Virgin Racing) and theres rumors that they might ban the dual engine from China NextEV too
That would be terrible for the sport. Such great innovations! C'moon FIA, stop being stupid!
No, restrictions in Formula E, too? Not there, please.