Grand Prix Rejects

Good evening everyone

I'm quite sure there's still a large number of us smarting and seething about the events at Puebla over the weekend, where Formula E delivered yet another farcical outing. In his May Gravel Trap article (which I may have forgotten to do a forum post about ), Klon stuck his neck on the line to defend the Valencia ePrix, where energy limits brought upon a race ending which defied belief.

Not this time around though! The fallout from the Puebla ePrix weekend, seeing Pascal Wehrlein controversially disqualified on Saturday about five seconds after taking a lights-to-flag victory has been such that an emergency Gravel Trap column was required to handle it! Read Klon's take on events right here today!

A Gravel Trap Special - Puebla 2021: Technical Problems for Formula E

Honestly, Formula E just gets weirder and weirder every year. It was always weird, but the surrealism of seventeen races around an airport and then arbitrarily DSQing every other driver is really making me wonder: as a big fan of open-wheel motorsport, I think FE has long, LONG outlived its infancy and its era of "we can make excuses for these terrible outcomes and decisions". What do casual fans and people just getting into motorsport think of FE? What's making them want to watch it when it's such a rejectful disaster every weekend?

Rob Dylan wrote: What's making them want to watch it when it's such a rejectful disaster every weekend?

They aren't. The race didn't even register amongst all the motorsports this weekend. At least here in the US. Which means that it had less than half a million viewers at most, which is for all intents and purposes nothing. And CBSSN is in only marginally fewer homes than NBCSN or FS1/FS2. And it had a ton of ads running, especially during the two SRX races the past two weeks. I have said it before, FE seems like a manufacturer's darling, but here in America, it may has well not even exist. And that's with F1 pulling its best numbers in literal decades.

Source: https://twitter.com/A_S12/status/140736 ... 81152?s=20

Here's the thing though - everyone I've spoken to who works with EVs and e-mobility thinks that FE is a waste of time. Sure, it's driving efficiency to some extent - but motor development is pretty much frozen up to a certain power level and there's no battery development at all. That's why you have the likes of BMW basically saying "we've gleaned everything we can from this, laters"...

Ataxia wrote:Here's the thing though - everyone I've spoken to who works with EVs and e-mobility thinks that FE is a waste of time. Sure, it's driving efficiency to some extent - but motor development is pretty much frozen up to a certain power level and there's no battery development at all. That's why you have the likes of BMW basically saying "we've gleaned everything we can from this, laters"...

Ever since Trulli dropped out, the lack of privateers had me worried for the series' future. F1 in the late 2000s showed us that there's only so much money that major manufacturers will flush away to struggle in the midfield.

Jamie & Enoch were always eager to hand out that prestigious "Reject of the Race" award to inanimate objects. Looks like the disqualification gets it then.
Thanks to the author for yet another great article. The first one in this unexpected "series" actually invited me enough to watch my first Formula E race (Valencia) on demand. Not this time, though. I'd rather re-watch the inaugural season of "Marbula E" on youtube, as it is looking less likely every day that there will be a follow-up season. Wehrlein supporter, you might ask? Yes, kind of, because he is the local hero.