By Noy Shani @NoyShani @TLE_Sport
The second Formula-E season started in Beijing on October 24th and it promises to be an even greater showpiece, building on last year’s success.
For the first time in motorsport history different cars will have different technologies, said CEO Alejandro Agag ahead of the season’s curtain-raiser.
The idea is that this year, manufacturers were allowed to develop their own powertrains, running with different gear set ups – from a single gear to as many as five.
Hence, there is hope that the change will increase competition.
“It’s very difficult to improve on our inaugural season, to pull off what we did in such a short period of time,” admitted a Formula-E spokesman, speaking to The London Economic.
Round 11 of the championship in London last season saw the competition go to the wire with Brazilian Nelson Piquet Jr clinching the title after beating Swiss driver Sebastian Buemi by a single point.
Whilst Formula E could not have wished for a better end to the season on the track, it was a slightly different story off the track.
According to official statistics, for the season finale the capital saw 27,750 race day attendees on average, compared to crowds of 75,000 in total for the season opener in Beijing and 90,000 in Putrajaya, Malaysia.
This, in part, was due to the location of the final race of last season – Battersea Park.
Addressing how can the already successful championship expand its reach even further, an FIA Formula E spokesman said:
“We try to pride ourselves as being the world’s leading digital championship using Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, Dailymotion and of course our FanBoost.
“This year we teamed up with Telescope to provide a twitter hashtag voting system. Fans can use #Fanboost alongside a hashtag with the name of their favourite driver and vote this way which cuts going through a longer registration process.”
It will be facinating to see how Formula-E develops in the coming years and how it handles its ongoing commitments to promote electrical vehicles and breed innovation on and off the track.
