Calm and Charge before Chaos. Analysing an Reviewing the strategies, the moves and everything that happened in Round 11 of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship 2022. Also, a brief Round 12 preview
A bite of the big apple, was a bit hard to take as it got washed by a sudden downpour but it was still what turned out to be a mega day for Nick Cassidy as he took pole position and then went to lead majority of laps in approximately 36 minutes of racing to take his first ever Formula E win. If the ending could be described as unforeseen chaos, the rest of the race before it was much more typical NYC circuit with the dash of the Season 8 spices. The qualifying was about staying on the racing line and pushing just enough, and those missed saw championship hopes diminish. It was the proper race for Envision Racing and Venturi Racing but for the rest, it was a bit bitter.
The weather played a major role in the whole race, nut just the end of it. Qualifying saw changing weather conditions, so much so that Group B had a bit of wet qualifying, not very wet but it was wet. The grid was mixed up after qualifying but there were some misses from the non – championship contenders as well as even they suffered from some lack of needed pace output in a manner that would help their times. So, the grid was mixed up but not jumbled up and New York City’s track is one that isn’t a Monaco or simply put not an easy and very overtaking friendly track but it gives some fair chances.
The race start saw Vergne having an incident in what was a chain reaction of hitting cars’ backs. It was Gio into Evans into Vergne into Lotterer and Vergne was the one who lost out most being 44.8 seconds behind into the 3rd minute of the race. This was borne out from the close racing and the nature of that turn where the incident happened. DaCosta had a lost a total of 6 places by the 5th minute into the race. After this the race was into more of a NYC mode with what was 3 different situation for drivers.
There were the early Attack Mode takers, waiting for the strategy of opponents to play out Attack Mode takers and then those who were just losing out. The first one to take Attack Mode was Jake Dennis who but then fell into what would be frustrating for him after the heroics of the 7th season, a general lack of performance but atleast this time around, he knew his car better and did not have to back out after climbing a lot cause he never climbed a lot. His main competition came against Nyck De Vries, who was severaly down on energy by about 2 – 3 percentage points on the others. He did recover that deficit pretty well by the time the race was Red Flagged but it was a compromised race for him in a season where he has been far from the fastest and luckiest driver. Sam Bird would have been a happier than usual driver after having had a a better qualy session followed by a decent Sam Bird type race of making a group of positions, and this time being ahead of teammate Evans.
The one to miss out the most was Alexander Sims again. He had bad qualifying performances and better races for quite some time even in Season and at the start of Season 8 but now he is able to push the car in the qualifying but again failed to in the race. He was not extremely slow as he matches laptimes with his teammate and some of the other people outside the points but he alongwith those others was a second slower than the leaders. Quite some might be down to the car because the team have had troubles getting the energy use and setup right on it for the whole season and may just be looking to finish the season as soon as possible. What this lack of pace and an Attack Mode strategy that saw him be one of the early ones to take it was that he lost out and fell even below Oliver Rowland by the end.
Copyright Sam Bloxham
So much so, that his start was fair and when Frijns and Whrlein took their Attack Modes he benefitted in position while being on Attack Mode already but then continuously lost. The driver who did benefit from Attack Mode timings was Vandoorne. With 21 minutes remaining, Vandoorne took the second of his two Attack Modes and got a brilliant exit. The Attack Mode is located at Turn 10 which a hairpin, a wide one. It is a 180 degree turn and the Attack Mode is located on the outside which the drivers sweep through. At the end the track is extended out and then turned in to the racing line to allow for drivers to be able to make the turn after taking the Attack Mode and Vandoorne took that smoothly and had good and smooth acceleration through there to come out ahead of Buemi and into 3rd place. Vandoorne was fourth before it net as Buemi who was in 3rd had taken Attack Mode and fallen behind him. This started the next move 4 minutes later.
With Attack Mode finishing, Vandoorne had the start/finish straight to overtake Di Grassi with the extra energy he had but Di Grassii used his FanBoost which lasted just long enough of 5 seconds as set by the rules, and by then the Attack Mode had finished and so had the straight. Di Grassi had deployed it tactiaclly well at a good point on the straight but even Vandoorne had FanBoost and used it on the run down to Turn 6 to overtake Di Grassi this time. A good series of tactical deployments. But Di Grassi fights and his car allows him to do that if he gets the energy targets right. nd he fought back. And what Vandoorne had to go through was that Frijns had decided to start charging up at the end after overtaking Buemi and close the gap to the Top 3. In the fight, Frijns came from the back and as Di Grassi went on one side, Frijns went on the other and both overtook Vandoorne. Cassidy did not have the best Turn 1, but was safe ahead.
THE WEATHER
The weather played a major role overall but at the end it played such a big role that the sudden downpour wasn’t even even all over the track. The biggest impact it had overall as a finisher was then. Before that also, with a dropping temperature and rising humidity and some drops of rain, some drivers had started to struggle and then with the sudden rain and sudden dip in track temp what happened was next!
It started raining on the track from Turn 10 from near the bay and it became heavy slowly. It gave time for certain teams who had seen it well to help their drivers adjust their driving and so not all drivers had a sudden slow down in laptimes when the rain hit. Some were not as well in their preparation. At the same time that water had started to gather in places around the track, Turn 1 was completely dry. The tyres are on Formula E cars all – weather but had been work down a bit and were handling two different conditions at once. This was interesting bit of downpour trend. That was grouped with a heavy change in wind direction for a small while. All of this added with the difficulty in regenerative braking and mechanical braking power, there was aquaplaning or sliding on water and chaos as crashes happened suddenly in “undriveable” conditions.
The race was not resumed and not only did this help those who crashed out including race winner Cassidy but alsthough not to that extent but a bit help to those as well who had continued on but would slip down due to the issues they had been facing. The cars that crashed visibly tried to brake but did not have the braking power and friction to do so. Before the Red Flag, a Full Course Yellow was thrown and that was a move in anticipation of the possibility of the chaos that still happened. Cars struggled to suddenly slow down even when that was thrown with drivers also starting to have visibility issues. Mortara was penalised for not slowing down enough. A slightly earlier FCY by maybe even a couple seconds could have led to less of a chaos and that just shows how fast everything happened that this needs a whole lot of inside look as to what can be done for the future.
BRIEF ROUND 12 PREVIEW
They is rain expected through different parts of the day but this time the preparations should be better. The quali mix up also may not happen as much or for the reasons that it happened in Round 11 and so, it could be quite a different E – Prix
All in all, it was a race that could have had several endings but it had the chaotic one and was a good example of the way the drivers are charging through in 2022!
|A BETTER BITE HOPEFULLY AWAITS|
spielens 