For the last two races of Season 9, we’re heading to London! What can we expect from the Season’s Finale?
Photo credit: unsplash.com/@alxndr_london
It’s a bittersweet preview – as much as we’re happy for the double header in London, we’re also very sad these two races will be the Finale of such a fantastic Season 9 of the FIA Formula E World Championship. The ups and the lows, the overachievers and the under performers, there will be time and place to discuss everyone and everything. But this time, let’s take a closer look at what we can expect from such an iconic venue as London’s ExCeL.
Formula E makes a triumphant return to East London’s historic docklands and the ExCeL events arena. The track, spanning 2.09km with 20 turns, offers an intriguing mix of indoor and outdoor racing.
The circuit commences indoors on a smooth surface with excellent grip, but as the racers swiftly navigate through a series of corners, they venture outside. Exiting the indoor section, they encounter a slippery metal strip before transitioning to the outdoor portion, surrounded by highly abrasive asphalt around the exhibition center. The outdoor segment presents a flowing arrangement of chicanes, creating opportunities for exciting overtakes. From there, the course leads to a rapid descent through a twisty set of curves, before circling back up and returning indoors to complete a lap. The drivers face a unique challenge due to the variations in surface, elevation, and lighting shifts along this distinctive indoor-outdoor circuit.
London’s ExCeL has witnessed two home winners in its Formula E history: Alex Lynn (Mahindra Racing) and Jake Dennis both achieved success at the indoor-outdoor circuit.
As said by the CEO of Formula E Alejandro Agag: “London was a primary objective from the beginning because we wanted to go to all the world’s major cities. London and New York were right up there at the top of the list, and also the places where we looked at the most potential venues. London was the big prize, but it wasn’t easy. There were going to be changes to the roads so it was a kind of moving target.”
Before we set of to discover which driver will come victorious after Rounds 15 and 16 and become world champion: what happened during the previous rounds in Rome?
Mitch Evans done what Mitch Evans does best in Rome, and won the race on Saturday, followed by Nick Cassidy and Max Gunther. Cassidy’s P2 on Saturday in combination with Dennis’ P4 meant the Kiwi was once again ahead of the Brit in the championships standings, but as it turned out not for long. The following day Evans ended his good streak in Rome when he got into an incident with his fellow New Zealander, taking himself out of the race while Cassidy finished P11. On top of that, Dennis won that race (he actually scored another grand slam, and is currently the only driver in FE who’s done it more than once) which propelled him into the top of the leaderboard, with a 24 point lead ahead of Cassidy. Considering London is the home soil of Dennis who drives exceptionally well on that track and won twice, it will be a hard task for Cassidy to take the trophy out of Dennis’ hands.
Lastly, we wanted to just quickly acknowledge again the big accident that happened on the streets of Rome, one that involved 7 drivers, but fortunately everyone walked away without any injuries. We’re just putting it here to manifest no big shunts in London, thank you very much!
Here’s the sessions schedule for this weekend’s Rounds 15 & 16 in London:
FP1 – 28/07/2023 – 18:00 – 18:45 CET
FP2 -29/07/2023 – 11:30 – 12:15 CET
Qualifying – 29/07/2023 – 13:40 – 14:55 CET
Race – 29/07/2023 – 18:03 – 19:30 CET
FP3 – 30/07/2023 – 11:30 – 12:15 CET
Qualifying – 30/07/2023 – 13:40 – 14:55 CET
Race – 30/07/2023 – 18:03 – 19:30 CET
We’ll be reporting for you live from London, so you can find the coverage of the WHOLE weekend here at Pitdebrief.com! And don’t forget: enjoy the race, wherever you are! ✨
