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Formula E: How could they improve?
Following the London E-Prix I thought I'd share some ideas I've had on how Formula E might be able to improve generally. Of course they'll never see this, but that's not the point right?
Live Broadcast
- The timing tower needs some improvement, mostly with adding team colours or logos to help differentiate them at a glance. This is definitely needed to better understand what's happening, especially with a 24-car grid.
- In group qualifying, the live lap timing appears seemingly in whichever order the director selects the drivers in. It would be better to order them showing whoever started their lap first, first.
- The broadcast, both this weekend and previously, has lacked a little polish. I know they're operating on a smaller budget than other world championship motorsports but fixing the audio and team radio issues, and not cutting away from an overtake that's about to happen, are a minimum in my opinion.
- They might do well to showcase the car development a little more. It's not a spec series but you'd be forgiven for thinking it is given how little they mention it - given road relevancy is a key focus of the sport I don't see why they don't focus on development of the powertrains every so often and how that is being carried over to road cars.
Racing
- More consistent penalties would help the sport's reputation a little. At the moment this is an easy way for people who don't watch the sport to criticise it - rightfully, as similar incidents are given very different penalties that seem to have no relevance to the incident itself.
- I think most locations should host double headers. Firstly, why spend all the effort building the track and paddock for a single 45 minute race? Secondly, it's more compelling to say a driver is looking to reverse a poor result "tomorrow" rather than "in three weeks".
- The championship should start and end in the same year. Having to say "2020-21 season" is more wordy than simply "2021 season" and the reason we need to use terms like "season 7" instead.
- I hope they keep group qualifying! The drivers love to complain but it keeps the championship close without artificial reverse-grids, and the title still goes to the team and driver who best maximised the situations they found themselves in.
- FanBoost is difficult - I don't take part in it, but don't hate it either. I like how there's still some skill involved - it's not a guaranteed overtake button, and sometimes the driver fails to get past. I do think it would benefit from preventing drivers repeatedly getting FanBoost, giving others a chance. Perhaps if a driver wins it twice in a row, take them out of voting for one or two races?
Others
- Better communication, especially with ticket sales. Right now it's not a given that an event will be able to host spectators, but they could have announced either way a bit earlier to give fans a chance to make or cancel plans to attend.
- A way to watch historical races would be a benefit! There doesn't seem to be a universal way right now like there is with F1TV & was with Formula E races on their YouTube channel. For some reason, probably broadcasting rights, they took them down - I think it would be beneficial to put them back as it's an easy way for a fan to share a good race with someone else.
What do you think?
As an avid but casual fan of Formula 1, and a ridiculously casual watcher of Formula E (read that as "DISCLAIMER: I probably got every assumption here wrong"), I would say going the way that simply copying the F1/Liberty Media format for a lot of things would trivially fix quite a few of these issues.
The whole interface needs a revamp, IMO. I feel like glancing at the screen for half a second should give you the info you need. While F1 still has room to improve here, FE is abysmal in this category. In addition to the changes you suggested, here are some of mine:
Yeah, a big gripe of mine a while back was basically being unable to show someone an awesome race moment because of restrictive rights usage. For F1, at least, it's gotten better in the past few years, and doubly so with F1TV.
This will probably improve as the crew gets more experienced, but I don't think I've seen as big an issue as, say, F1 in Monaco this year, for instance. Getting Lance Strolled is a massive meme which has propagated through all motorsport fandoms, and it's only been like two months.
While I agree with the general point, I feel the bigger criticism and easier way to criticise FE is due to the videogameification of the race (Attack Mode & Fanboost). There's something about the... artificiality of these mechanics that rubs them the wrong way, as well as the fact that people watching can directly influence the race.
Alternatively, aim for longer races (more below).
My absolutely horrible suggestion for improving Formula E: go full Mario Kart with it somehow. There's already relatively random stuff that would confuse a classic motorsport watcher, like Attack Mode and Fanboost; why not add more stuff and build upon that? As a ridiculous example, give the drivers a stick and a single "poke"; whoever gets poked loses a certain amount of output for a few seconds, like a reverse fanboost.
Failing that, add more "classic" strategy with longer races. Have pitstops to quick-charge the battery. Maybe have maximum energy expenditure be a function of current energy (say, a linear decrease of output, where 50% battery = 80% output or something along those lines). Maybe in the future, have something like quick-replaceable external batteries, with a restriction on their max capacity (mostly since FE tech is supposed to trickle down to consumer cars, and I think modular batteries seem like a cool idea).
Wow... that's ridiculous. I'm a bit shocked. This is like Big Brother reality TV. This makes me much less inclined to watch it, TBH.
It's definitely unique... If it helps at all, the extra power doesn't guarantee the winning driver will be able to make an overtake stick, especially on tighter tracks with shorter straights (see F1's DRS for example - both boost straight line speed, and in both cases the driver in front can still defend).
And the extra power comes from the battery which doesn't get bigger if they win, so it has to be offset by a little more lifting and coasting later in the race. It's a negligible difference but it's there.
I just wish they'd put something in place to stop the same drivers winning it race after race. It'd be nice if someone else got a chance.
Yeah, it's good that it's not such a great advantage, but that's still a terrible precedent (and an advantage nevertheless). Even with the change you propose it would still introduce an element of unfairness that is just unacceptable. Just from the top of my head, it is obvious to me that better looking drivers could have a lot more fans, and maybe the ones from countries with more people, and also drivers with a greater online presence (not to mention bots)...
Here's a simple solution to that: statistics. You normalize the votes by the votes they usually get. You could go as far as to guarantee every driver gets first, second and third each once per season, but that's overdoing it a bit imo and kind of defeats the purpose of the fan boost entirely but guarantees fairness. Should still be able to get it a few times more than that. Either way, what it does is it gives the boost to the driver for whom the current race is super important. Think George Russel in F1 starting from 8th important. All eyes on him, he gets a bit of a boost. I'd like that.
Even simpler: remove it :P
I do think they're working on pit stops to recharge batteries for Gen 3, starting late 2022/early 2023. I'm not sure swappable batteries would work - making batteries removable by design might not be ideal for safety in crashes.
Personally, I wouldn't like the idea of longer races. Add in the pre-race and post-race segments of the TV coverage too and you're approaching F1 levels of time commitment on a race day, but without F1's prestige or track record to justify it. For me, 45 minutes is just right to have a good race without it dragging on too much. FE cars and strategy lend themselves to a sprint much more than a marathon like F1.
Why do you enjoy following Formula E, as opposed to other Formulas? How would you sell it to someone? What's special about it? Where can we watch it?
The final two races of this season are taking place on the 14 and 15 August in Berlin. You can find out where to watch in your country closer to the time here https://fiaformulae.com/watch
I follow F1, probably more closely than FE, and WRC and BTCC intermittently too. I enjoy the closer racing in FE - whereas F1 can be a bit processional this seems a bit more exciting, and the championship battles are close
Last race highlights https://youtu.be/wGeB5BI8CRM
Championship standings https://www.fiaformulae.com/en/results/standings/driver