Extreme E is back again for its rescheduled 4th Round, now being held in the heat of the dusty, and European Sardinia, Italy instead of being held near the Amazon rainforest, and the championship introduced a circuit that was different from all that it had done before. Conditions that are different, track that is bumpy, has water elements, requires wipers during sunny days, and has been challenging the cars as they can’t hold up enough. This round might also see RXR seal the championship or it could also see Andretti United Extreme E enter the Championship fight in a manner that they could become favorites. But what does the track hold for the championship? A detailed look at the track, the terrain, the possibilities and more!
It is a track that all drivers with previous rallying history just seem to connect to and love because it is one that is a well crafted proper off – road rallying track which Carlos Sainz Sr. describes as a “very complete track” as because it has all the features that one would want to see some challenging and technical racing. It isn’t a completely complete track since it does miss out on some features that can make it more balanced or maybe more challenging and add features that can give almost every team some advantage, but it is very truly a “very complete” track, especially when you considering a rallying template which many of the drivers in the series are used to. It also isn’t just a couple or 4 -5 broad sectors but every part of the track has some features that is either being repeated well or is new.
THE START
The most interesting feature is probably at the start itself – the multi – lane option. There are upto 8 possible routes that can be taken at the start before coming back onto the one single track route. Each of the lane options is of a different length, has slightly different terrain in terms of the bumps and width, and also each of them would provide slightly different form of aid while driving and hence, the question to answer is that which one is the fastest or the most advantageous, without being allowed to spend enough time with the car on the track with one Shakedown run and just one Free Practice lap for each driver (if possible, since many cars boke down and some drivers could not get time in the car). The lane that they chose, which is way different to just choosing a line could make the difference as every second matters.
The lines are one that the teams will need to decide as early as possible as even in the qualification they might matter, and even if they don’t matter as much in qualifying, in the races they might make all the difference and in the qualifying they can try out a maximum of two lines, since after the Switch there is just one line instead of all the options. No team would also be looking to give much away early on to help other teams and in the races, if more than one car take the same lane, there could be some fighting for who gets ahead first in order to get the better exit through the lanes into the rejoining point, where cars converging from different lanes could come close to each other and there maybe the requirement of some skillful precision driving to get through safely and ahead of the rest.
The starting part of the track up until the first few proper sharp turns has been described to be slow and then there medium speed sections and places such as the traction challenge section which is the Super Sector where they would be looking to go fast but it contains the water splashes. The first part of the track might be suitable to some drivers with more experience that the others and that will be an important consideration in the driver order selection for some teams.
THE TERRAIN
The terrain is unforgiving, especially for the ODYSSEY 21, which has not been as reliable as the developers and designers themselves would have hoped for. The tracks bumps are not that high in elevation changes as the dunes in Saudi Arabia in the first round of the season, but there are firstly several with it being a terrain which doesn’t get plain smooth anywhere, and then there are bumps in places that really send the car into the air at a steep angle, making its landing impact that much bigger. This damages the car and can end the lap there itself as happened with JBXE during Free Practice. This grouped with the two water splashes which are deeper than they look to be, and with cars going at full speed, the water splashes which are muddy create huge splashes and also test the car’s suspension as the car goes down and then needs to safely get back on land without getting too airborne, at high speeds. The water splash not only covers the windscreens of the car making the splash but when there are cars in back of almost to the side, they could get a lot of the splash.
Mainly the track is sun – baked sand which also leads to a good amount of dust in the air and is very hard yet traction isn’t very high always. This track does not have maybe as many risky sand dune drops but it does have one extreme drop which again tests the car’s suspension. Most importantly, unlike the straights of Greenland, the track is a lot more hard yet bumpy in a slightly different manner, especially as the cars pass through narrow paths surrounded by bushes where you can go off track a bit but the overall track does stay narrow for stretches, wherein it might become a train but these narrow stretches open up into some good racing areas where overtaking is very possible and hence with 5 cars in the Finale, if all cars do survive even half of the first lap, this might fall into the hands of driver such as Carlos Sainz and Johan Kristoffersson who have previously also shown how they are able to navigate and pick the right lines better in such conditions.
All in all, the track is one that has full potential to provide close and exciting racing but a lot will come down to how well the teams are able to understand the track and the area where they can make the difference at the start itself and which driver has more control than the others will be more important than in the previous round.
|ELECTRIC RACING AWAITS WITH ALL NEW CHALLENGES|
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