By Carlo Platella
There couldn’t have been a more different track to replace the EUR circuit in Rome, so dear to the drivers. The headquarters of the Italian E-Prix moves to Misano, above a shortened version of the circuit which hosts the MotoGP every year. Thanks to a slip road, the Variante del Parco and the Curva del Rio will be skipped, directly connecting the starting straight with the extension that leads to the Quercia, while a chicane has been artificially introduced at the height of the Curvone. The final 3.4 kilometer design is still among the longest and fastest on the Formula E calendar, setting the stage for a race with cycling contours.
The exception becomes the rule
Misano is the latest addition to an increasingly long list of permanent circuits in recent years, in a category originally created to race in the city, following a contrary trajectory to Formula 1, now attracted to city tracks. Teams and drivers thus find themselves having to reinterpret the Formula E single-seaters, designed to be agile and agile on narrow urban streets and not very suitable for the long straights and wide bends of permanent racetracks.
“I think the biggest challenge for a Formula E car is the fast corners”the thoughts of world championship leader Pascal Wehrlein. “We normally race on much smaller and tighter circuits, with mostly low-speed corners. This track, however, is full of fast corners, which are unusual for Formula E.” However, the curves are not the only anomaly that needs to be managed: “During the race we will have to save a lot of energy. It will be a bit like Berlin or Portland last season, the kind of races where you want to travel in the slipstream and don’t want to be in the lead. It will be a different race from the last ones.”
The Misano track for the Formula E race
Understanding cycle racing
The presentation of the event was perfect, curated by Wehrlein, shining the spotlight on what becomes the dominant theme when Formula E lands on the permanent circuits. The large spaces of the racetracks allow you to reach high speeds, both on bends and in a straight line, but also bringing with them an increase in aerodynamic resistance, increasing consumption. This is why the collective priority is stay away from first positionat the cost of giving it up in order to be able to travel in the wake of another car to reduce energy consumption.
The result is a paradoxical race dynamic for motorsport, challenging the dogma according to which to win you must be in the lead and which results in a race with countless exchanges of positions. Skeptics will rightly object that these are not real overtakings, precisely because they are facilitated by those who should instead defend. The final product, however, still has its own peculiarity, which can be appreciated if one is able to understand the dynamics at play, halfway between those of cycling and the IndyCar events on American ovals, where the mantra is to travel in the slipstream and save one’s strength or fuel.
Easier said than done, because even if you want to avoid finding yourself in the lead at the wrong time, you still have to fight to stay in the top positions, juggling in a platoon of cars separated by a few centimeters, defending themselves tooth and nail. Dropping back in the group would force you to expend more energy to move up, with the risk of the pacemaker also breaking away. The first to save enough energy will in fact be able to break away and push hard without any more management, making it practically impossible for the pursuers to overtake at that point.
A new beginning
Misano promises to offer two races with a high tactical component. For Saturday’s race the drivers will have 38.5 kWh of energy available, which compared to the 28 scheduled laps is equivalent to 0.41 kWh/km, slightly lower than the 0.42 kWh/km of Mexico City, Diriyah and Sao Paulo, but with a significantly higher level of management. THE two fewer laps scheduled for Sunday instead they will ensure 8% more energy, anticipating the moment of potential escape for the tread.
A new championship begins in Misano, since with Berlin, Shanghai and Portland, 8 of the 11 remaining events will be dedicated to cycling races. A clear change compared to the start of the season, where qualifying performances were particularly important, meeting the favor of some drivers, including Nick Cassidy: “The races with more exchanges of positions are certainly more fun and this is a positive aspect of the championship: being able to offer exciting races. Everyone complained about races like Mexicobecause they were too boring.”
Nick Cassidy, Jaguar TCS Racing, Jaguar I-TYPE 6
However, the Jaguar standard-bearer does not hide a veil of concern: “We haven’t seen this type of racing yet this year. However, some teams and machines are much more efficient now.” The New Zealander’s fear is that Jaguar could struggle in highly managed and energy efficient races, after having shone instead on the bumpy and tortuous city circuits, which are less convincing from this point of view. However, the same “cycling” races that Formula E is preparing for offer enough variables to overturn the engineers’ predictions, where, between the calls of the strategists and the vision of the drivers, the human factor will play a decisive role.
