The most farcical part of Formula E for me will always be the Fan Boost [0]. I almost couldn't believe it when I saw it on TV for the first time. Fans vote for their favourite driver, and that driver then remotely receives a boost to their car. I thought it was a joke.

[0] http://fanboost.fiaformulae.com/

THIS I immediately stopped watching Formula E because of that. I like motor racing not popularity contests with cars. The tech involved in the cars is great though.

As I understand, fan boost allows the selected car to use more energy for a small amount of time. However, it doesn’t increase the amount of energy the car has available. The driver will still need to account for that somewhere else in that lap or another. also, it’s one-time per race. It might allow a single pass but it’s not going to make a huge change to the results.

Many of the greatest moments in motorsports hinge on "a single pass."

Fan boost is great.

Formula E is in it's infancy, and right now is still drawing in fans and support.. Now is the time for stunts like this...

It won't be around forever, but for now it provides an additional measure of interaction and excitement in a sport that is already hard to get into if you're not willing to follow the non-race drama (the "circus" as they put it).

Okay fine. Just don't call it motor racing then. Given that the cars are obviously running in some artificially crippled state compared to the 'boosted' car. Call it ... Car-big-brother or something instead :p

The cars’ power output is electronically limited, this limit is raised during the 5s of boost.

The same thing could be done for normal F1 cars - for example, by raising the RPM limit, power output or drag reduction for a few seconds. In fact, with KERS, F1 drivers already have the same kind of boost but without the voting.

Sure. The voting aspect is my big gripe though. Without the voting they don't need the limiter. If the dumped the voting and allowed teams to innovate battery I'd be ALL OVER IT but they need dump the voting aspect like-right-now.

Like I commented elsewhere, you're making a big deal out of basically nothing.

FanBoost is a gimmick, and even F-E management acknowledges that it has virtually zero impact on the race itself.

It's a 5-second ~5% power boost.. That's not going to change anything, and neither would letting the cars run at 5% more power in general without it..

I am sure that teams are innovating battery and motor just fine even with this minor limitation..

Don't you think if FanBoost was actually crippling or limiting innovation in the way you're assuming, the teams would cry foul? That kind of counter-productive decision would go against one of the main reasons they do these racing leagues (to innovate!).

As an aside, all motor racing is "crippled", as you put it, by rules and regulations designed to provide a reasonably level playing field.

Even Formula 1 has all kinds of limiting rules and guidelines that prevent teams from simply building the fastest/lightest/most powerful cars they can possibly design, and that's intentional.

So all the smart people know this is a scam played on uneducated redneck masses in order to grow following. I bet nothing can go wrong with building your fan base out of idiots.

I haven't even watched any F-E race at all, but am a bit bothered by your comment. What makes it a scam? It's all fully laid out, and there is a (small) chance the voters can actually impact the results of the race as suggested.

Generally speaking, I agree with what you're saying - I think FanBoost is stupid. BUT - the limit would still be there. They limit the RPM, etc. in the petrol cars for other reasons too. I think this is a really small impact on how "crippled" the cars are.

I wouldn't get worked up about things being 'limited' when virtually all race cars are limited in some form. F1 has fuel flow restrictions and rev restrictions (which can't be reached due to the fuel flow requirement). Nascar has restrictor plates. LMP2 and 3 both have displacement restrictions. Indycar has rev restrictions.

Unlimited racing basically becomes a bloodbath and a contest of who has the most money (which is a problem that F1 still has). Yes, fan boost is a gimmick, but don't get too upset about the purity of 'artificially crippled' racing.

Not really, it's not. It's a popularity contest in what should be a contest of crews and vehicles.

And Formula E is 99% still a contest of crews and vehicles, and a 1% gimmick designed to engage fans and viewers in this new sport.

It's really not the problem you're making it out to be.

FanBoost gives one driver a one-time 5-second ~5% boost to use during the race..

That's not going to change race outcomes in any significant way, and even Formula E acknowledges that it has (intentionally) virtually no impact on the race..

You're not supposed to take ideas from the Hunger Games or The Running Man and use them in earnest. That's some Phillip K Dick level insanity right there.

So...if I'm hearing you...I should take 1984 as a cautionary tale rather than as a set of cultural goals? But everyone seemed so unified in vision, a little shouty, but totaly on the same page.

And, frankly, the new language is doubleplusgood.

I feel like we could extend this to essentially be like mario kart or the wacky races and it'd be great!

What's farcical to me is that the cars are standardized and manufactured by one company. How is that supposed to be interesting and drive innovation?

The goal is powertrain innovation, without making teams divert their funds to developing new chassis and aero parts. The powertrain, beyond the battery, is free for manufacturers to compete on. Only the first season (2014–15) had completely identical cars.

Isn't battery where innovation is most needed?

Most of the concern with battery innovation is you can burn a lot of money very fast, as far as I'm aware, and I believe the manufacturers believe the powertrain to be more useful to invest in.

It's also where innovation would require funding a whole science lab with years long return times. There's already a huge amount of funding going into battery tech already as well.

Yes!

For one, motorsport have actual spec series with nearly identical cars that highlight driver skill. They're used as feeder series to test and promote talented drivers.

More to the point of Fomula E, the degree of standardization is changing as the series progresses, with increasingly more aspects of the chassis and powertrain open to development.

Having a standard platform at the start made sense to minimize cost and bring in new competitors who don't want to spend the $200+ million a year like Formula 1 or WEC, where only 2 or 3 factory teams dominate and make for boring racing. Even a big company with a racing pedigree like Honda hasn't been able to field a competitive engine in F1.

As the formula matures they can start focusing on more areas of technical innovation.

The cars aren't standardized, the chassis is. The electric motor, inverter, gearbox and cooling system are all developed by the teams. This just prevents teams from having to waste funds on developing aero.

Same as A1GP - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A1_Grand_Prix#Chassis_and_engi...

> This regulation provided a level playing field in which driver skill and team effort should become the primary factor for success.

Compared with F1 now where some teams can (effectively) "pay to win".

To be fair, the F1 teams pay to win by paying for some stunning engineering. The way the F1 rules are set up means that F1 is basically an engineering contest first and a racing series second. It's part of the reason that it is so great to watch.

.. and I say this as a McLaren fan (which, for those that don't follow F1, is a traditionally top F1 team that has had an absolutely woeful couple of years).

True. For example, Force India, one of the teams with the least amount of funding of all of them on circuit. They are competing way above their way class, in terms of money, and doing very well. It's actually pretty amazing how often they are in the points (top 10 race finish) for the resources they have. Talk about amazing engineering and process they must use to compete against Ferrari/Mercedes/Red bull.

Yep - one of the things Eddie Jordan did right, setting the environment up to really optimise for one condition (top speed). When you have limited resources, focus on the most important thing and then make up for other shortcomings with talent.

You mean differentiate on the driving skill and not who has the most cubic money?

Besides, it’s not the first race series to do that. Not much of an auto racing fan myself (MotoGP, please), but IROC comes to mind (Cameros for everyone!). Motorcycle Super Sport comes close, you can choose different manufacturers, but the bike has to be pretty close to stock. I’m sure bigger race fans can come up with other examples.

There's currently a big discussion about the future of LMP2 due to that sort of restrictive innovation, taking it closer to spec. Then there's the multitude of one-make series further down the ladder - certainly isn't a new phenomenon to have arbitrarily close cars from one or more manufacturers.

Yeah, but bodywork "much more stylised than before" will please advertisers, not aerodynamicists. And sound which will irritate your pets still remains.

Do you mean they are removing the farcical re-charge?

IE, it was a farce to recharge in the middle of the race in the previous season.

They don't re-charge the car mid-race (and never have); they simply change between two cars, and that's what they're getting rid of.

I'm not sure what makes that farcical - in the first three seasons, the car swap was required because battery capacities were too low to power the car for the whole race. Now the battery capacity requirement is double - isn't this pushing battery development forward?

The batteries have been, and remain, standard parts, used by all teams. There's no on-track competition pushing battery development forward, they're just put out to tender every few years by the organisers.