Dennis Formula E win overshadowed by farce
Earlier in the day, on the other side of the Atlantic in Valencia, Spain, British Formula E rookie Jake Dennis began what turned out to be a fantastic day for Michael Andretti’s racing operation when he also scored a surprise lights-to-flag win. The BMW works driver deserves all credit for his mature performance – but sadly the Valencia weekend will mostly be remembered for the poor show put on by Formula E in the wet Saturday race that ended in farcical confusion.
On the electric single-seater series’ first event on a proper race track rather than a pop-up street course, expectations were high that here was an opportunity for Formula E’s high-calibre teams and drivers to put on an extravaganza of overtaking and great action. The race was certainly incident-packed – but in the end for all the worst reasons.
The electric Mini safety car was certainly kept busy, the race disappointingly starting behind it because of the conditions, then it returned on four more occasions to control the pack in the wake of accidents and some clumsy moves from drivers who should know better (yes, we mean you, Andre Lotterer). Reigning champion Antonio Felix da Costa was leading for DS Techeetah, but then a mix of awkward race regulations and officials choosing to stick to them when common sense really would have helped led the race to unravel in the most bizarre of circumstances.
Formula E racing is built around energy management, with teams and drivers having only a set amount of charge to last them the 45 minutes plus one lap race duration. But there’s a rule that 1kWh for every minute run under caution must be docked from each car – and this time, with so many interruptions, that meant a total of 19kWh of the original 52 was stripped away.
The race director has some discretion to play with on this rule, but still chose to stick to the letter as da Costa approached the start of the final lap – and like others behind him suddenly found he didn’t have enough energy within the rules to complete the race. In the end, only nine cars were classified as finishers with Mercedes EQ driver Nyck de Vries passing da Costa to take what will surely be the strangest win of his career.
Good for de Vries and his team for doing a great job in managing its energy allocation. But the way the rules were implemented made the majority look incompetent and stripped away any extra credibility Formula E might claim it has gained this year in its first season as a top-grade FIA World Championship. It was just embarrassing.