Formula E London 2020 track

Formula E will return to London in 2020 on part-indoor track

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Formula E will race in Britain for the first time since 2016 as the series announced plans to revive its London Eprix in a new multi-year deal.

The season finales of the 2014-15 and 2015-16 championships were held on a track in Battersea Park but local opposition to the race forced the all-electric series to look elsewhere.

The new track, which will host the final two races of the 2019-20 season, will run around the Royal Victoria Dock and incorporate an indoor section running through the ExCel centre. The 23-turn course will also run alongside the Thames waterfront.

“I’m extremely excited to be bringing the ABB FIA Formula E Championship and electric racing back to the UK,” said Formula E CEO Alejandro Agag.

“Every motorsport series would love to host an event in London – this has been our desire for quite some time now and we’re delighted to have found a new home at the ExCeL.”

The London round will take over from New York as the current venue for the championship’s season finale. The current Formula E season will conclude at the Brooklyn-based circuit in July.

Formula E’s first visit to London in 2015 saw a home win for Sam Bird. Sebastien Buemi won the weekend’s opening race but lost the championship to Nelson Piquet Jnr. The following year Buemi clinched the title in the London double-header while team mate Nicolas Prost won both races.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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13 comments on “Formula E will return to London in 2020 on part-indoor track”

  1. A shame… Birmingham ePrix would’ve been better

  2. good news for FE to return to London. And with the track at this spot, surely there won’t be too many complaints about noise (or disruption from the buildup). The layout doesn’t look too exciting, but whatever.

    If they manage to get good spots to view from, especially if part of them can be elevated to actually get a view, it will be fun anyway.

  3. Fantastic news – I always thought an indoor/outdoor event at ExCel would really set Formula E apart thanks to the lack of exhaust fumes. Could be incredible to watch if they pull it off and attract the interest of more casual fans used to arcade racing games, where indoor/outdoor sections are entirely normal.

  4. looks like fun, even if the layout looks like a rather naff kart track. I was never really up on the story of why battersea park ended up being so unfavourable to local residents. the park is actually very well used so perhaps the disruption was too much for too many people. docklands is obviously a less desirable venue in terms of location and what’s around it, but it is probably more suited to this kind of event.

    1. @frood19

      Which Kart tracks do you consider ‘naff’? I don’t remember any in Europe that I didn’t think were exhilarating.
      Even the little ‘Alonso Circuit’ at Genk is awsome and promotes race-craft.

  5. Lenny (@leonardodicappucino)
    5th March 2019, 9:50

    Why does FE have such terrible tracks??? I tried to watch the first couple of races of this season, but had to stop watching halfway through the Santiago ePrix just because of how bad the track was. That double hairpin and the chicanes, yikes. With the Mexican layout even worse, I haven’t bothered watching it. FE, please stop with the unnecessary corners, chicanes and for god’s sake, get rid of double hairpins!!!

    1. @leonardodicappucino @pluisje I think a lot of it is down to where the technology is at the moment.

      They need a lot of straights into slow corners to maximize energy harvesting under braking. And then having more slow-ish corners helps them use a bit less energy & again allows for a bit of re-gen under braking.

      Running on a permanent road circuit would not only not be ideal from the energy usage/harvesting POV but would also open up comparisons with other categories which I really don’t think they want right now given where the performance of the cars is. There not exactly slow but having a direct comparison to other categories (When there slower than some of the junior formula) wouldn’t be ideal given what they want the series to be viewed as.

      1. @stefmeister

        Faster junior catogories where nobody but the parents show up top watch. That’s the main problem Formula E would have. Demoting itself to a huge drop in audience numbers across the whole board in motorsports that takes place out of town.

  6. What on earth is that double hairpin-section at the top… Like Lenny above these ridicuous tracks is my biggest turnoff about Formula E. I really hope they will start racing on actual racetracks in the future, instead of these glorified mariokart-tracks in cities.

  7. Adam (@rocketpanda)
    5th March 2019, 12:21

    Admittedly the track looks a little uninspiring, but I live in London – I think I’ll have to check it out when it’s on.

  8. A few thoughts.

    First a nitpick: this course doesn’t run along the Thames waterfront at any point, unless you count Royal Victoria Dock (clearly labelled on the map in the article) as part of the river. I don’t. Also the track doesn’t run “around” the dock.

    Alejandro Agag was interviewed (briefly) on Radio 4 at about 07:00 today and made a point of saying that the FE tyres are the same for wet and dry conditions, so they could (and in the UK probably will ;-) have the outside sections wet and the inside ones dry without too much difficulty.

    I wondered about the capacity of the local transport links, but I’m going to assume that the FE people have done their homework.

    I’m sort of intrigued by an indoor/outdoor race, and as ExCeL is fairly local for me so I might even go along and have a look :-)

    1. Surely a huge exhibition space isn’t going to have transport capacity issues. Not unless they always do.

    2. BlackJackFan
      6th March 2019, 9:32

      I agree with your first thought because, although it might be a ‘nit-pick’, when the PR gets such things ‘wrong’ I wonder what other BS is included in the Press Handout…

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