London E-Prix Race Reaction
The Race Reaction team went to the final round of the 2023 Formula E Championship - the London E-Prix! On our second consecutive outing to the event, we took full advantage of the wonderful activities both on and off-track. With so much to cover including red flags, apple crumble, and even Tinie Tempah, let’s get stuck in.
We covered the Formula E championship and gave our Formula One mid-season review on our latest episode of the Race Reaction Podcast. If you’d prefer to listen to our thoughts on the London E-Prix, then click here.
Qualifying
Being avid fans of F1, we’re not overly used to the shootout qualifying format Formula E has been using the last few seasons. That being said, we were huge fans of the way the format created such excitement, even if the duels were only over one lap.
The Group A qualifiers set great lap times, including Nio 333 driver Dan Ticktum who, at his home race, just missed out on the final duels by a tenth of a second. It was a session to forget for NEOM McLaren as both Rene Rast and Jake Hughes failed to put in a good lap. The top four from Group A were: Nick Cassidy, Jake Dennis, Sebastian Buemi, and Sam Bird.
The Group B qualifiers also put on a great show with Jaguar driver Mitch Evans taking the top spot, followed by Nico Mueller, Norman Nato, and Stoffel Vandoorne. It was a horrible day for the Mahindra cars of Lucas Di Grassi and Roberto Mehri, who looked promising after the first round of the season with a podium finish but went downhill from there.
The first quarter-final was one of the most tense laps we’ve ever seen - Dennis and Buemi were separated by 0.018 seconds! With Envision in direct competition with Andretti and Jaguar for the constructor’s championship, Buemi’s defeat seemed to lower the morale of the team, losing to such a small margin.
The second quarter-final seemed to go Envision’s way, with championship runner-up Nick Cassidy beating home hero Sam Bird by two-tenths of a second, a great result to tighten Envision’s grip on the constructor’s championship.
Nissan driver Norman Nato was up next, going up against ABT Cupra’s Nico Mueller, who’s only made two quarter-final appearances in Season 9, promising a great points finish for the team later on. Nato went through to the semi-finals with a 0.265-second gap to Mueller. The last quarter-final was between last year’s champion Stoffel Vandoorne and Mitch Evans, with Evans eventually besting Vandoorne by two-tenths, giving the Jaguar driver the best chance to fight for his team’s championship hopes.
The semi-finals were somewhat predictable with Cassidy and Evans taking wins, leaving newly-crowned champion Jake Dennis to line up P3 for the final race of Season 9. The duel between Evans and Cassidy was too close to call - it looked like Evans had it under control until a sudden burst of pace from Cassidy meant the Kiwi leapfrogged Evans and took pole by just ten milliseconds. Overall, the final qualifying session of the 2022/23 Formula E season was spectacular!
The Race
Earlier in the season, Formula E announced that the London E-Prix would be held in the late afternoon for the first time, which meant that we had ample time to check out the other attractions in the Allianz Fan Village - more on that later. Set to commence at precisely 5:03, we sat down in our seats, located halfway between the final; corner and the start-finish straight.
As the classic London rain clouds gathered over the ExCeL in London, we were informed by race control that the race was to start behind the safety car, as a standing start would be too dangerous given the amount of standing water on the outdoor parts of the track.
Six laps flew by as we watched the Porsche Taycan safety car lead the 24 drivers around the track and then race control red flagged the session. We waited for around 15 minutes and they went out to go racing - the race was red flagged, yet again, a lap later. At this point, we sat there and enjoyed some live interviews with fans in the other grandstands.
Nearly 90 minutes after the race was supposed to start, the track was deemed safe and the drivers set out for a rolling start. The race start was pretty tame, with Vergne making an early pit stop and Dennis making a move on Norman Nato whilst taking his first attack mode of the race.
Many wet laps later, Dan Ticktum moved his Nio 333 into P10 and then past Pascal Wherlein into P9, promoting his home crowd to give him a massive round of applause.
The last few laps were pretty tense, with Sebastian Buemi making a great move on Sam Bird into Turn 1, securing Envision’s championship chances - the Swiss driver nearly caught up with Vandoorne in P5, an impressive drive from the 34-year-old. An additional four laps were added to the tally after losing a few behind the safety car at the start of the race but this didn’t change much.
In the end, it was a commanding drive from Kiwi Nick Cassidy who beat Mitch Evans by only a few seconds, with Season 9 champion Jake Dennis rounding off the podium. Last year’s champion Stoffel Vandoorne did well to stay P5 and Nico Mueller did a fantastic job to score his second-highest points finish of the season.
Allianz E-Village
Arguably the star of the event, outside of the racing, was the E-Village by Allianz. There were so many new stands this year, a large improvement from the off-track activities available last year.
Our favourite stands included the Gaming Area, where fans could try their hand at racing the London E-Prix circuit themselves - on a racing simulator of course. Manav set a time that put him a provisional 90th in the all-time standings and Miles set a time that saw him into the top 30 times of the day. Whilst we’re no Jarno Opmeer, we had a great time using the Fanatec racing wheels, the technology used by Formula One teams for simulators.
Apart from embarrassing ourselves at the sim racing, we also visited the Saudia Air stand, where there was an interactive game that asked you to pair the countries Saudia Air provided logistics for Formula E races.
The fastest time when we visited was eight seconds, that’s some pretty quick fingers. After we tried the game, we got given a few freebies including a frisbee, a leather luggage tag, and a branded soft foam toy. We also got the chance to snap our photo with Saudia Air ambassador Stoffel Vandoorne - only virtually. Here’s Manav posing with the DS Penske driver:
Formula E’s official tyre sponsor, Hankook, was also present at the event, promoting its new iON compound, used primarily in electric vehicles. We were taught about the various uses Hankook has for recycled tyres, including remote control car tyres, trainer soles, and even skateboards. At the end of the talk, we were given the chance to try a claw machine, and we got a Hankook teddy bear on the first attempt!
The food was also on another level. The food options for lunch, breakfast, or even for something sweet were immense. Whilst Manav went for a shawarma wrap, filled to the brim with veg, whilst Miles opted for a classic hot dog, a hearty lunch for us both. For dessert, we were tempted by an apple crumble pot, topped with warm vanilla custard, a fitting treat for someone with a sweet tooth.
Other displays included a Formula E car made entirely from recycled electronics and all previous generations of Formula E cars, dating back to the Gen 1 model from 2014.
Tinie Tempah also made quite the impression, stunning the crowd both after qualifying and before the race. The renowned British artist performed his best hits such as ‘Pass Out’ and ‘Miami 2 Ibiza’, which demonstrated Formula E’s successful campaign to attract the next generation to the zero-emission sport.
Final thoughts
Manav: “I greatly enjoyed our second consecutive visit to the ExCeL for the London E-Prix, it was, without doubt, one of the most energetic racing events I’ve ever attended. The Fan Village really tied it all together and whilst we didn’t see much wheel-to-wheel action, we’ll definitely be going to next year’s running, even if it’s as wet as this year’s was!”
Miles: “It feels as though Formula E is growing in popularity and London seems a better place than anywhere to maintain Formula E’s foothold in motorsport. With the Gen 4 era around the corner this series is is shaping up to follow F1’s timeframe for technological development.”
If you want to find out more about our experience at the 2023 London E-Prix, listen to our latest episode of the Race Reaction Podcast below!
