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Attending round three of season three of the FIA’s Formula E Championship in Buenos Aires, gave me a first-hand look at the cars in the heat of battle and a preliminary picture of the pros and cons of the various technical solutions on display. It’s really refreshing to see such diversity in design concepts and innovation on the same grid, but while some have produced a great basis for a solid championship fight, others might be in for a bit of a struggle as the year goes on.
Obviously, Renault e.dams had a great foundation to work from after last year’s success and the work they’ve put into integrating their powertrain design with the car as a whole has really paid off. They were already lighter than everyone else last year and it proved to be a winning formula, but this year they’ve gone a step further, removing the gearbox and having the motor directly drive the car’s rear wheels, in theory allowing them to reposition ballast forward of the car’s centreline, improving balance. It obviously saves more rearwards weight on a Formula E race car that’s fundamentally heavier than its traditional counterparts because of the cumbersome battery, but now they could be able move anything in the region of up to 15kgs into the car’s keel, the forward most allowable ballast position, depending on how light they’ve managed to get it. With very little in the way of aerodynamic downforce, weight distribution can have a more significant effect on reducing the natural understeer the car has and lightening the rear end gives the team options, without having to compromise the mechanical balance so much to get the same effect.
Having said all that, having a gearbox does allow you to maximise performance and efficiency at every stage of the motor’s range, so in theory race starts and exits of slow hairpin corners could be compromised to a degree, but the approach from Renault, and one that’s proving to be validated so far, is that it’s a long race and so qualifying and launches may not be as important a focus as the longer game of energy efficiency and race pace.
As an aside, it was interesting to note that despite being penalised for having an empty, therefore underweight, fire extinguisher in Morocco, the car was not deemed underweight overall. That points to there being at least some 3kg margin over the minimum car weight, which would seem odd, perhaps they were being overly conservative on car ballast, or got their figures wrong, or are they indeed still over the 880kg minimum weight limit imposed by the regulations, but I thought it was a curious occurrence?
The guys at TECHEETAH clearly have a huge opportunity with the same powertrain hardware and software as Renault e.dams, but up until Buenos Aires, operational errors have let them down. New personnel and a greater understanding of the car are starting to show improvements in the hands of Jean-Eric Vergne.
I know there’s lots of work going on with brakes within the team at the moment and trying to understand ways to reduce locking, which was a problem for lots of teams, but definitely the TECHEETAH cars. So many factors affect braking performance in FE, from variable and difficult to manage temperatures, to the regen system altering brake balance between front and rear axles, mixed track surfaces and bumps and of course weight distribution plays a part too.
It was fascinating to see the difference at the NextEV NIO team this season compared to last. Their car was one of the heaviest last year, but although they’ve kept the twin motor set-up, it’s been refined and repackaged in a lightweight carbon fibre casing, improving both weight distribution, but also chassis stiffness. There’s a clear swing in performance towards qualifying single lap pace, but the fact that other than Turvey gaining one spot in Marrakesh, neither driver’s been able to move forward from their start position in the three races so far, still shows the solution has deficiencies in maintaining pace over the length of the race. Piquet Jr still showed an impressive ability to manage energy though and the extra lap he managed over team-mate Oliver Turvey in the first stint in BA, which allowed him to jump the Brit who lost two full seconds through the pit stop phase.
Last year’s championship contenders Abt Schaeffler Audi Sport have stuck to their season two layout. The packaging of the motor, inverter and three-speed gearbox is small and impressive, but still looks heavy compared to the Renault. In terms of efficiency, mass obviously play a role, together with outright lap time, but Lucas di Grassi in particular seems able to drag the car round under control and with good pace. Renault looks out of sight at the moment, so the biggest trouble Abt has is the increased challenge from behind as other teams have closed the gap significantly. It was interesting to see Audi Sport sending Allan McNish along to work with the team and offer advice to the drivers over the weekend.
The Venturi team looked to be clearly struggling with temperature and energy management, to the point where Stephane Sarrazin had to visibly back off on the last lap, just to make it to the end. Their system is a development of the original McLaren eMotor, but with a new, impressively small and lightweight, inverter and electronics, so perhaps the now ageing motor technology is showing signs of being left behind in the efficiency stakes. It’s a problem they’ve had to try and contain, but the team told me they have significant software updates coming for Mexico and may even apply to the FIA to change some hardware on the ‘exceptional grounds of safety or reliability’ permitted under the regulations, either way, they’re hoping for measurable improvements next time out.
Of the other teams, the new boys, Panasonic Jaguar Racing, seem to have been conservative in their technical approach and look heavy in the way the car handles and struggles under braking. They were though, much improved in Argentina and a huge part of success in Formula E is about learning to understand how to best use your technical package, both as drivers and engineers, so there’s scope for them to get better with every lap of data and experience they collect.
MS Amlin Andretti had a busy weekend, mostly repairing damaged cars. The lack of track time for Antonio Felix da Costa hurt his chances of a good finish, but struggling to control temperatures and as a result, the way they could manage energy use, was just as big a factor come the race. High ambient temps really hurt the teams who have the least efficient cooling packages, control systems and operational strategies, as it can impact everything from max power use, ability to regen and the need to lift and coast in the race.
The new Mahindra car looks pretty promising in terms of its speed, but reliability let them down in Buenos Aires. The team’s all new powertrain looks strong in most areas, giving great pace in both qualifying and race trims, the Magnetti Marreli six phase motor and inverter package may have a weight penalty, but is efficient enough to be able to run smaller cooling radiators than some teams, saving weight and aerodynamic drag.
DS Virgin Racing had a torrid weekend on the streets of Buenos Aires with accidents, but there are promising signs in the car. Braking looked much improved over season two, the previous twin motor set-up caused all sorts of instability issues, together with the braking nuances of the FE car in general. So that’s a big area that gives the drivers confidence to push hard into a corner. The Puerto Madero street track rewarded strong, late, consistent braking into the slow corners after long straights and it’s an area the team have been working on. They also looked relatively on top of energy management and together with good underlying pace, there’s reason to be optimistic. As a team, it’s fair to say they did very well in season two to score as well as they did, given the excessive weight they were carrying around and the lap time penalty that created.
Hardware may be homologated and locked in, in Formula E, but software development, strategy understanding, energy management and learning how to get the best from the new technology continues at a rapid pace. Roll on the Mexico City ePrix.
Marc Priestley
@f1elvis