SA’s Formula E race showcase to go off grid
● Forget load-shedding. In just over six months SA will host the first “Electric Festival” of its kind, featuring Formula E electric racing cars speeding through the streets of Cape Town at well over 200km/h.
And the entire e-Prix race (an offshoot of the Grand Prix circuit) will be propelled by solar-powered sources called micro-grids, each able to power 25 homes at once. No Eskom required.
The long-awaited Formula E race, which organisers say is 95% secured, will mark SA’s re-entry into top-tier international open wheel racing. It follows a successful bid by a local consortium to add Cape Town to the global Formula E circuit starting from February next year — for the next five years at least. Local organisers say they have secured most of the 7.8km of road barriers and fencing required to host the event, and are preparing to manufacture 24,762 seats to be installed along the track.
Along the route state-of-the-art Formula E racing cars will careen past the V&A Waterfront, Cape Town Stadium and Signal Hill.
The race is being flagged as the highlight of a 10-day e-Fest intended to draw attention to the energy crisis and the urgent need to expand SA’s “green economy”. Local organiser e-Movement plans a series of events, including a north-south electric car rally and an African green economy summit.
e-Movement, led by sports promoter Iain Banner, who founded the Laureus World Sport Awards and Sport For Good Foundation, plans to export the e-Fest concept worldwide, notably to four other countries hosting Formula E events.
“What this event will do is fast-track the solution to our energy crisis,” said Banner. “Out of crisis comes opportunity and solution. It is unfortunate that we had to get this bad to find a solution. The whole economy is being brutally damaged but we will have a clean solution to help power this country forward, and we are bringing focus to that.”
By way of example, Banner hopes to power not only the Formula E race network but the entire event ecosystem with solarpower micro-grids. “Our intent is to be entirely powered by green molecules. We may not get this right in year one, but I am confident we will from year two,” he said.
Other cities hosting Formula E race events include Monaco, Mexico City, Berlin, London and New York. It is a world championship event launched in 2014/2015, and will mark the first major racing championship event in SA since the 1990s — and the first on a city road circuit.
The City of Cape Town is spending R44m on race preparations and track building, and news that event planning is almost complete coincides with speculation that SA may once again host Formula One racing, most likely at Kyalami, which used to be part of the global Formula One circuit.
Formula E circuits are typically 2km-3km long. The latest generation of electric racing cars has top speeds of about 280km/h and accelerate from 0 to 100km/h in three seconds.
Cape Town’s Formula E race is not without controversy. A rival local consortium, Cape Town Grand Prix SA (CTGPSA), last year accused e-Movement of stealing its intellectual property. This week CTGPSA spokesperson Esther Henderson said she and her partners were also bidding to host Formula One racing in Cape Town, and had been talking to the city about a street race since 2007 with the same concept and circuit as e-Movement.
“If they were to move forward and use our concept then there is still a legal process that needs to happen,” Henderson said.
e-Movement denied any wrongdoing. Banner said he had been trying to bring Formula One back to SA since the 1990s at the personal request of racing supremo Bernie Ecclestone. He had also discussed the proposal with former sports minister Steve Tshwete, and had twice revisited the concept, in 2001 and 2011. “But the race was simply too expensive,” he added. The Sunday Times has seen a letter sent to Banner in September last year in which Ecclestone says he is not aware of CTGPSA.
Banner said he successfully bid for the Formula E event in 2019, resulting in official sanction from race organisers. “There was nothing stopping them [CTGPSA] bidding for it — they didn’t,” he said, adding that e-Movement’s race concept was unique and not “borrowed”.
“How do you ‘own’ the racetrack and the design thereof as a promoter? These roads belong to the city. Our track was designed by Formula E and its nominated track designer. We simply implement their vision,” said Banner.
Final confirmation of next year’s race calendar by the World Motor Sport Council is scheduled for October, with Cape Town pencilled in as “to be confirmed” for late February. The event was publicly endorsed by all major stakeholders in March when the city revealed the finalised racetrack.
Alberto Longo, co-founder and chief championship officer of Formula E, said at the time: “We’ve had a very positive response within our ecosystem of teams, drivers and sponsors about coming to Cape Town, so we are delighted that the city is joining our season 9 calendar. When I first met Iain Banner in 2019, he said he was confident that Cape Town had the potential to be one of the top cities on our global calendar. This is my first visit to SA and having now seen the beauty of the Mother City, I feel confident that he is right.”
Other stakeholders said this week the race was a major boost for Cape Town — and for alternative energy. Enver Duminy, CEO of Cape Town Tourism, said: “Formula E is a great event for Cape Town, as the green electric technology used is crucial when it comes to carbon footprint offsetting. But also, for a country like SA, dependent as it is on coal, this race clearly demonstrates how it is possible to host a mega-event without adding strain on the environment.”