Electric showdown in Berlin
Six races in nine days will decide the 2019/20 Formula E electric racing championship
THE 2019/20 Formula E season concludes this week, in a radically different fashion than first envisaged. Between November and February, the first four rounds in Saudi Arabia, Chile, Mexico and Morocco went ahead as planned, but the championship then had to be paused due to the coronavirus outbreak.
In the months since, races in China, Italy, France, Korea, Indonesia, the US and UK have all been cancelled, and a new arrangement – consisting of three doubleheader, behind-closed-doors events across nine days, on three different track layouts at Berlin Tempelhof Airport in Germany – has been put in place. Only essential personnel will travel for the race, with no fans, media or VIPs present. Social-distancing and hygiene procedures, along with Covid-19 testing, will be employed for those present.
It’s set to be a uniquely intense finish to the championship, with the first two races happening on 5 and 6 August, on a reverse version of the previously used
Berlin layout. After a day’s break, the teams will be back in action on 8 and 9 August, racing on the familiar Berlin track used in previous seasons.
Then 12 and 13 August will see a revised version of the standard layout employed for the final two races of the year, with a series of new corners added.
Formula E sporting director Frederic Espinos said: “We aimed to make [the teams’] lives as tricky as possible in Berlin, limiting the effectiveness of their simulation work and throwing strategies up in the air.
“Car set-ups will all need to change, energy management and regen will be completely different and they’ll have to think on their feet. There’ll be a lot for drivers and engineers to get on top of before we go green and I feel the
Formula E spectacle fans are familiar with will be pushed a step further still with this additional bundle of unknowns.”
Going into these final six races, every driver on the grid has a mathematical chance of winning the championship, but it’s DS Techeetah’s António Félix da Costa who leads the standings on 67 points, with Jaguar’s Mitch Evans second on 56. British BMW works driver Alexander Sims is third on 46, just ahead of his German team-mate Max Günther, who managed to rack up 44 points in the course of opening races.
There have been some driver changes during lockdown, too, with Audi’s Daniel Abt replaced by DTM ace René Rast, after losing his seat due to a sim-racing cheating scandal. Abt has managed to slot in with the Nio 333 team, whose Chinese driver Ma Qinq Hua is unable to travel to Berlin.
Elsewhere, ex-Formula One driver Brendon Hartley has parted ways with the Dragon team, with his place taken by Red Bull’s F1 reserve driver Sérgio Sette Câmara. And at Mahindra Racing, Pascal Wehrlein has made way for the ex-Jaguar and Virgin driver, Briton Alex Lynn.
“It’s set to be a uniquely intense finish to the championship, with six races across nine days”