The first-ever FIA Formula E Championship season has kicked off, and the circus is in town for Round 2, having completed the first race in Beijing last month. That’s right – Malaysia is hosting the second-ever Formula E race tomorrow, and setting the scene is our very own administrative capital, Putrajaya.
While the picturesque city is used to more serious, governmental happenings day-in and day-out, it lets its hair down here, morphing into a street circuit for the world’s first fully-electric FIA single-seater series.
Operating as an ‘open championship’, the series gives carmakers and constructors the chance to showcase their electrical energy innovations in a racing environment. All while meeting FIA specs, of course.
A total of 10 teams, each with a pair of drivers, will compete in SRT_01E all-electric single-seater racers. Built by France-based Spark Racing Technology, the car features systems integration by Renault, and powertrain and electronics by McLaren Electronic Systems.
The lithium-ion batteries come from Williams Advanced Engineering, the carbon-fibre and aluminium chassis from Dallara, and the 18-inch treaded tyres (designed for both wet and dry conditions) from Michelin.
A ceiling output of 200 kW (270 hp) goes to the rear wheels through a Hewland five-speed sequential gearbox with shift paddles. 0-100 km/h is done in three seconds, and top speed is a respectable 225 km/h.
Full power is available during qualifying, but in the race proper, power will be limited to 150 kW (202.5 hp). However, you can vote online for your favourite driver and give him/her a FanBoost – the three drivers with the most votes will receive one five-second power boost each, temporarily increasing their car’s output to 180 kW (243 hp).
The 2.56 km-long ePrix course is located near Perdana Putra, which houses the Prime Minister’s Office, and will use much of the main high street, running along buildings such as the Ministry of Finance. The temporary track will feature 12 corners.
The circuit, put together by the FIA, Formula E and local promoter Formula E Malaysia (FEM), also plies the Seri Wawasan Bridge and Putra Mosque. It will see drivers tackle a mixture of straights, slow to medium speed corners, a hairpin plus a tight first-corner chicane providing good overtaking opportunities.
We paid a visit to the Putrajaya Formula E paddock this evening (directly opposite the Ministry of Finance buliding) while the teams were preparing for the big day tomorrow (practice, qualifying and 31-lap race all in one day), and came away impressed by the three-storey temporary structure that housed the pits, media centre, offices and the Emotion Club, Formula E’s version of the F1 Paddock Club.
Not as busy as the Sepang paddock during F1, but it was still pretty interesting to see the teams prepping their machines and pushing them to the FIA inspection room.
Motorsport fans will be excited to see famous names such as Andretti (Andretti Formula E Team), Aguri (Amlin Aguri Formula E Team), Prost (Nicolas, e.dams-Renault driver), Piquet (Nelson Jr, China Racing driver) and Senna (Bruno, Mahindra Racing driver). Audi and VW enthusiasts might want to get the signature of Audi Sport ABT driver Daniel Abt, for his father designed your bodykit.
Formula 1 fans will notice that a number of ex-F1 drivers are also competing, from old hands such as Nick Heidfeld (Venturi) and Jarno Trulli (racing for his own team) to relative youngsters like Jaime Alguersuari, Karun Chandhok, Charles Pic and Sebastien Buemi. Interestingly there are two female drivers in the field – Brit Katherine Legge (Amlin Aguri) and Italian Michela Cerruti (Trulli).
Head down to Putrajaya tomorrow morning (qualifying starts at 10am, driver autograph session noon, race at 2pm) for live action or tune in to RTM for the live telecast of the race.
GALLERY: Scenes from the Putrajaya Formula E paddock
BMW i8 Formula E Safety Car
Renault Zoe, Twizy and driver meet and greet session
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Its as boring as watching silent movies
No it is not. I was there to see them doing shake down yesterday afternoon. No engine sound but you get to hear the electric motor whining which is quite loud. It is like watching RC race but bigger size.
Are you a kid ? otherwise U must lead a very boring life to have so much freetime watching RC
To be fast, you don’t have to be loud. One good example is the Tesla Model S which easily “smoke” your car with its 0 – 100km/h 3.2s (it actually ZERO emission).
Meanwhile, we saw so many mod Iswara/Wira/Persona/Satria Neo on the road crawling with noisy exhaust pipe. They so scare people don’t know they are driving a Proton???
To be fast, you really don’t have to be loud. Empty bucket often make the loudest noise.
Termaksih kerajaan BN. Tanpa kerajaan BN, kami takkan dapat lihat persembangan hebat ini.
Kerajaan BN amat setia dan bagus!
Pity us that suffer for months because of the traffic changes.
And what’s gonna happen to the structures ie paddock etc after this race us over? Taken down huh…what a waste of funds..
Disassemble n stored in specific area within pjaya. Assemble back for nxt season
How did it feel to see the i8?
The i8 was awesome. I guess it was a hybrid because you can hear the engine screaming, then you know the race cars are right behind it.
Should have gotten a Tesla model S instead of i8. That is a true blue electric car.
Silent movies are not boring. Fritz Lang’s Metropolis had awesome special effects for its time (the 1920s). And don’t forget Charlie Chaplin’s classics. Though you never hear the dialogue, they have very good background music – usually classical.
Similarly, the 1st e-race was hardly boring. There was more overtaking moves than F1. And there is one added spectacle you don’t see in F1: the drivers jumping out of their car and jump into the 2nd car during their “pit” stop. Haha. That was a blast watching them practice the best moves for jumping out and in, before races. Heidfeld’s car even went airborne and crashed into the catch fencing on the last corner of the last lap, after being hit by Alain’s son. Luckily for them, Quick Nick survived as these cars can’t get anywhere near F1 speeds (they can’t anyway, as the street circuit was tighter than Monaco).
1920 ? WTH … you stuck in time or what. You enjoy silent movies so much , best terminate your Astro HD and your Internet.
Just buy a projector with reels and lock yourself in the room… watch your charlie chaplin with a fan, not an aircon even.
What fun is there watching battery operated cars running in circles…. Denial is a sickness, a sickness refusing to admit reality
Give it two seasons, Formula E will be dead… bankrupt teams without real sponsors
If you are a true cinema buff, like me too, you will watch everything from a German silent movie from the 1920s to a Japanese film from the 50s to a Spanish film from the 90s. Don’t tell me all you enjoy watching is soap operas and dramas on one of the Astro channels…..
Formula E is a good concept as it allows manufacturers to go crazy on electric technology for future road cars. Even F1 today uses hybrid technology. This season they are all using the same cars to maintain spending within teams, but in the future they will allow other constructors to join. It will be like F1 right now. Hopefully it won’t be dead, but it should be pushed as a serious form of motorsport.
Wow it seems that the temporarily prepared Pit Building for the Putrajaya ePrix looks better than the one we saw in Beijing ie as the teams were only given Thant’s for their operation….
Fyi most of the driver’s seems to like this track a lot especially guys like Trulli,Chandhok and Heidfeld hum and don’t you guys forget in this series there are two female drivers a first for single seater racing well not really as Indy and Daytona already have girls turning the wheel …
huhu it going to be mighty interesting ……
I have to say Putrajaya seems to blend well with this track layout, The race in Beijing was boring because the walls were very tall …
Agree. The track looks wonderful. The commentators today even compare it with Albert Park. If Malaysian want to host F1 night race a la Singapore, this is the perfect place.
hum I think the team to watch is E.Dams Renault team ,Mahindra Raising and Venturi Raising..
oups misspelled racing
It’s such an irony that our beloved Government willing to organize such event yet impose such heavy taxes on Hybrid / Environmental Friendly Cars.
Hur hur hur I think I prefer to look at the i8 instead…
Syok sendiri! we were told to tighten our belt because of the sluggish economy and yet these wasteful event happened. for what? tourism? really? do they bring so much that they cover all the expenses and still contributed to our GDP?
Mana Proton punya kereta? Still in prototype?
Why Putrajaya streets and not the nearby Sepang racetrack?
Because nobody wanna see this race if event held nearby Sepang. Its too far away
If i’m not mistaken, the purpose was to put the race in a “suburban” environment rather than a purpose built race track. The first race also was on a street circuit. Maybe cos the cars don’t go fast in a straightline, so it would look really slow on Sepang’s long main straight. But on a tight street circuit, it would look far more exciting.
But yeah, the cost of building the track (including the barriers/catch fencing which look very professionally done when I went past there a few months back) & amenities from scratch and then tearing it down would be rather expensive and time consuming exercise I must admit.
So, they could have used the shorter version of Sepang, which uses the shorter back straight rather than the main straight and race mostly in the last half of the circuit. There are already pit areas there (if i’m not mistaken) and a huge covered grandstand for the spectators to watch. Anyways, it was the promoter’s decision.
i was there yesterday…but didnt get to see the practice session. but i must say the i8 was pretty amazing after seeing it in the metal. sounds really great too once the petrol engine starts to kick in. what an awesome safety car.
Formula E is the future…cut down waste on fuel..go electric…rather than F1 burning precious fuel just to fulfilled the excitement of some kiddo
1 safety car for me please :)