Montreal ePrix: The positive and the negative of electrical car racing
More from Walter Buchignani, Montreal Gazette
Formula E is a unique racing category that is worth to be judged on its own merits. Ryan Remiorz / THE CANADIAN PRESS
Sound, smell, speed and spills. These are the four essentials of car racing, purists will tell you.
If that’s the case, Montreal’s inaugural Formula E event has at least three strikes against it even before the go-lights blink on Saturday for the very first of two races on consecutive days.
But let’s not leap the begin. Formula E is a unique racing category featuring battery-electric cars that look like their Formula One cousins, and it is worth to be judged on its own merits.
Tho’ the series is in its infancy — Season three concludes in Montreal — it is clearly gaining momentum on the racing circuit at the same time that electrical passenger vehicles are making greater inroads on our streets and highways.
It helps that Formula E loves the legitimacy that comes with being sanctioned by the same assets that governs F1, the Paris-based Fédération internationale de l’automobile.
Like F1, the electrical version travels to major and sometimes exotic cities around the world, including Hong Kong, Marrakech, Buenos Aires, Paris, Berlin and Fresh York. Next year, Rome joins the calendar.
(I wonder: With all our griping about the cost and inconvenience of staging an ePrix, would there be any less of an outcry here if, say, Toronto appeared on that list of destinations instead of Montreal?)
Drivers include a number of F1 alumni, tho’ cynics might call them cast-offs. They include defending champ Sébastien Buemi of Switzerland who goes into the weekend in a good position to secure back-to-back titles.
In fact, four drivers are in mathematical contention to snatch the championship in the season finale. F1 fans these days can only desire of that kind of competition.
There are no Canadians in the field, however Jacques Villeneuve had an inglorious stint in 2015, lasting only three rounds with the Venturi team co-founded by Leonardo DiCaprio.
Ah yes, Formula E attracts its share of Hollywood types. DiCaprio attended the Fresh York ePrix two weekends ago, as did Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chris Hemsworth and Naomie Harris.
There are no female drivers in the current entry list, a glaring omission for this forward-thinking series. Last season, Simona de Silvestro of Switzerland became the very first woman to score points at an ePrix, ending ninth in Long Beach, Calif.
Meantime, major car makers are racing to get in on the act. Renault, Audi, BMW and Jaguar are already involved. Just this week, Mercedes and Porsche announced they’re leaping in as well.
Even the world’s most famous racing stable seems all of a sudden interested. An electrical Ferrari? “An almost obscene concept,” CEO Sergio Marchionne once said. More recently, he acknowledged: “We need to be involved in Formula E.”
Let’s see. You know what they say about leading a Prancing Pony to water.
But back to the four Ss, commencing with sound. No question, there is something unsatisfying about race cars that don’t sound like race cars. And yet, it’s effortless to see how the futuristic whines and whirs of electrical motors may appeal to today’s game-console generation.
Smell and speed? Again, nothing like F1, where top speeds exceed three hundred thirty km/h. In Formula E, they’re capped at 225. Then again, the acceleration of electrical cars is awesome, as anyone who’s seen a Tesla at a traffic light can attest.
As for spills, ePrix have a track record of providing slew of wheel-banging and near-misses, thanks to the typically narrow and twisty street circuits on which they run. Montreal should be no different.
Of course, we could have saved ourselves a lot of distress — and maybe taxpayer dollars — by staging the event at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve instead of erecting a improvised circuit on the eastern edge of downtown and creating weeks of havoc for commuters, merchants and residents.
You can make a good argument that the lush setting of Île Notre Dame — accessible by métro or bicycle — is the ideal venue to stage an event that is meant to help promote and feast a responsible mode of transport.
There is something perversely ironic about having to displace Bixi docking stations to make room for a car race, electrified or otherwise.
Then again, we’re told almost twenty million fans around the world are expected to observe the event on TV. It’s not a bad idea to display them something of Montreal other than the Biosphere.
Plus, staging the ePrix at the same venue as the Grand Prix would invite comparisons of lap times and other spectacle indicators. Formula E organizers know this would not help their cause.
Fact is, slower cars require shorter tracks; otherwise, spectators are made to wait too long for the racers to come round again. The loop at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is Four.Four kilometres; the street circuit Two.75.
As well, the grandstands at the fresh installations are closer to the activity, and some residents will be able to witness from the convenience of their balconies, Monaco-style. This will only add to the spectacle.
I’m looking forward to it. If you go, come say hello. You won’t even have to shout.