I went along to my first Formala-e race at the weekend, spending Saturday afternoon in a very different looking Battersea Park which had been kitted out with concrete barriers and steel fences to turn it into a leafy street circuit with narrow twisty turns and a couple of long (fairly bumpy) straights.
It was great fun and there was a pretty big crowd but it did feel like very early days for the organisers. The e-Village was a bit sparse (only BMW seem to have grasped the opportunity to show off their road cars) and the food was a bit meh. They also could have done with some support races as their was not a lot going on between qualifying and the race. I watched the Sunday race on the TV and it’s tricky to say that I got a lot more from actually being there on the Saturday.
Richard Branson is right to say that it’s going to be bigger than Formula One, especially as manufacturers can build their own cars from next year. Competition is hotting up in the electric car world and hopefully the benefits will soon trickle down to road cars and all of us through reduced emissions. Congrats to Nelson Piquet jr on becoming the first electric world champion!
