display
The curious scenes at the Formula E race in Valencia, in which numerous cars ran out of energy on the final lap, were not a fault of the race management, according to the world association Fia.
Frederic Bertrand, the Director of Race Track Competitions at Fia, placed the events on the fringes of the racing weekend.
“The reality is that energy management is a key to our mastery and clearly a challenge that we must face.
Most of the time we handle it accurately, sometimes not quite as accurately. "
However, Bertrand did not see the race management to be at fault, but rather took the teams responsible.
“In the briefing, the teams and drivers were given the clear understanding that we would reduce the energy as we did last time in the race in Rome.” Previously, some racing teams had doubted whether the automatic energy reduction would be used in the last of a total of five safety car phases everything went correctly in Valencia.
Formula E is not planning any changes
display
In the second race in Valencia on Sunday, too, many drivers struggled with almost empty batteries. Jake Dennis from Team BMW Andretti, who ultimately won the race, apparently prevented another debacle. The Briton was instructed to slow down significantly shortly before the end in order to cross the finish line only after the 45-minute mark. With this maneuver, Dennis ensured that another lap did not have to be completed in the race.
If the drivers had had to drive two more laps, many would probably have run out of energy again. Lucas di Grassi, driver at Audi, considers the racing series to be a solid world championship despite the embarrassing incident in Valencia: “Formula E is credible, everything works. It was just an exception that happens once every 1000 races. ”The bad thing is that people are riding around on it right now.
There are still nine races scheduled for the current season. According to Fia, a change to the energy rule is not planned for the time being. “Dealing with energy is one of the keys to Formula E. We can see that it is challenging, but doable. Some have succeeded very well, others less so. That is a lesson for the future. We will remain constant in dealing with such challenges for the rest of the year, ”emphasized Bertrand.