Chicanery in Formula E:
(A couple of weekends ago I realised I’ve only ever written non-fiction things for school and decided to try my hand at writing about something I’m actually interested in. Plus my English teacher last year was really not into opinion pieces so voila: Here’s my opinion for anyone who’s interested.)
“I don’t think Maximilian Guenther would have been so successful at the start of season 6 had we had more chicanes.”
That’s the opinion I have had since I watched the start of season 6 live at the start of this year, but it’s taken me until now to actually do the research into why I think that. First off, I seemed to think that far more chicanes had been eliminated than actually were. In fact, only two tracks were actually changed so in total we only lost three chicanes; one in Santiago and two in Mexico. I’m going to focus on the removal of the turn 8-9-10 chicane in Santiago.
The first thing to take into account is I have nothing against Guenther. He’s not one of my favourite drivers but I have no reason to hate him or want him to do badly. However, something about having a horrid childhood has made me subconsciously resent anyone who is ever remotely lucky, and Guenther’s first podium was also his first win and his first points of season six. That’s the definition of tinny luck.
But I’m not here to talk about Guenther (at least, not right now) I’m here to talk about chicanes and how much I missed the one at Santiago whilst watching the race in season six.
To start with, we need to talk about the differences in attack mode. In season 5 attack mode was just an extra 25kW whilst in season 6 it has been bumped up to 35kW. Maybe it was because season 5 was the first season I watched of Formula E, but it seemed like the differences between cars in attack mode and cars without was very hard to pick out without the on screen graphics and the halos and it became clear early on that having attack mode whilst the car ahead did not didn’t guarantee that the attacking car would be able to overtake.
However, watching the first races in Diriyah in season 6 it really struck me that you can actually see the difference in power on the straights.
What we take away from this is that having attack mode when your rivals don’t is a much bigger advantage this season.
Now, the new turn 8 in Santiago is actually what this whole piece is about. The problem with having such a big change in attack mode advantage is that overtaking on long corners has the potential to get a bit predictable. Usually that wouldn’t be an issue (this is a Formula E race after all, predictability isn’t a factor) as the chicane split the long corner nicely but it was removed for season 6.
When I rewatched the race I counted at least five overtakes into that corner and the majority of them involved the overtaking car having a speed advantage (attack mode, better state of charge, better battery temperatures etc.) bearing in mind these are the moves they showed on the coverage. There could have been more in the midfield.
A few examples are; when Vergne had damage and wasn’t letting da Costa past, da Costa could pass him into turn 8 with relative ease, even though Vergne was defending incredibly robustly; and of course, the move that solidified Guenther’s victory was made into turn 8, after da Costa had to start lift and coasting massively because of his battery temperature.
Although, there are a few other factors that affected the outcome of the race, one of the most obvious being Evans taking his second (and final) attack mode with 30 minutes +1 lap still left on the clock. This affected how well he could defend in the final stages of the race and as Evans said they, “. . . really shot ourselves in the foot.”
Another factor to take into account is the absolute clownery going on at the Techeetah team at the time. Without even taking into account the mess of the team orders with Vergne having major damage and not letting his teammate past, you’ve got the mess of da Costa’s race engineer not realising that he didn’t have any attack modes left to take, and then the pièce de résistance: da Costa was told his battery temperatures were fine and he should attempt to take the lead from Guenther, only to then have the team turn around after he’d made the move and say, “Your battery is so hot it’s about to spontaneously combust. You need to lift and coast.” (Paraphrased of course.)
Also Wehrlein, who was looking to be a worthy competitor, dropped back from the leading group massively after not being happy with the car and having to lift and coast much earlier than he would have liked. As it was, he managed to bring the car home in P4 but seeing as he started in P3, if he hadn’t had those issues with the car it’s likely he would have been able to cause a bit more misery for Guenther.
Additionally, when Guenther first attempted to take the lead from Evans into turn 1, Evans didn’t simply feed him into the wall. I can think of a couple more experienced drivers who might not have given the younger driver the room and he might have been left with the nasty split second decision of bin it into the rapidly approaching wall or back out.
The only other track that had its chicanes removed was Mexico.
I think removing the T3-4-5 chicane was a good change because that’s where Piquet had that horrific crash last season and that just seems like not only the most respectful thing to do, but also the most responsible.
Also something about that extra bit of track is just so incredibly pleasing to me and I can’t really put my finger on why. I remember sitting on my couch in pitch darkness at about 2am with the volume turned all the way down, so as not to wake my family, to watch the first practice session. I’d seen the track map on instagram but I didn’t really have any strong feelings about what it was actually going to look like.
But something about the shot looking from the double apexed hairpin up towards the rest of the circuit made something click for me. Maybe I’d been lying to everyone I spoke to (and myself) about how road racing is the superior form of racing and my heart sung for the idea of grass runoffs. Maybe it just triggered major déjà vu and reminded me of the tracks my dad used to race his motorbikes at. All I know is I genuinely really love that extra section of track.
The other chicane that was removed was the turn 14-15-16 one and I don’t have as strong feelings about this one as I do the Santiago one. I think other than maybe allowing the cars to get up to higher top speeds on the pit straight; making it harder for the leading car to pick a place to take-off after the safety car pits; and the increased tyre wear on the left hand tyres removing this chicane didn’t really change the whole track overall.
All in all, I believe that if the chicane in Santiago had still been there, Guenther would have had to do more work to get his first win so early in the season and it would have made for more interesting viewing. Chicane’s splitting up the longer corners tend to make it easier for drivers struggling with speed, tyre wear, damage, usable energy, battery temperatures etc. to defend from better faring drivers behind them and means they aren’t at such an obvious disadvantage.
That being said, I do believe Guenther would have won his first race this year regardless, as he has really come into his own since being given the BMW seat. In fact, it isn’t unlikely he would have got his first podium in Diriyah had he not broken the rules about overtaking under the safety car.
I’m sure I wasn’t alone in having many doubts about Guenther being da Costa’s replacement at BMW, but if I truly believed that all his successes up to and including Santiago could be chalked up to luck, his performance in Marrakech would destroy all such thoughts. As I’ve said before, I’m not a massive Max Guenther fan, and it can be argued that Vergne was sick, but the way Guenther sold the dummy to the double world champion and passed him to clinch second even had me on my feet in amazement.
(Thanks to @gingervivilou and @myimaginarywonderland for liking my last post so I didn’t have to like it myself 😅)
