Cape Town to host all-electric Formula E racing series next year

Posted by David Henning on 9 July 2021

Cape Town will become the first Southern African city to host the all-electric Formula E racing series on 26 February 2022, CAR Mag reports. This follows an announcement made by the global motorsport governing body, the FIA.

Credit: Twitter/@FIAFormulaE

 

What is Formula E?

Formula E is a motorsport championship for electric cars founded in 2011 with a mission to race on the streets of the world’s most iconic cities, showcasing what sustainable mobility is capable of. It has since become the world’s fastest-growing motorsport series.

Since its inaugural debut in Beijing’s Olympic Park in 2014, Formula E is now an FIA recognised championship, making it the only single-seater racing series outside of Formula One to have world championship status.

The Sport differs from its big brother, Formula 1, in that races are 45 minutes long plus one lap races and a tyre that lasts the whole race, with no pit stops. The race has an added complication that makes up for no pit stops in that drivers have to strategise their approach.

The racing team has to calculate how much energy they can use per lap to save energy for the 45-minute race because if they drive too aggressively, their batteries will be depleted before the 45-minute race is over.

The sport is described as playing chess at 250 km/h, and drivers have to deliberate carefully on when to overtake someone. To have an in-depth overview of the sport, watch the video below.

Formula E comes to Cape Town

This will be the first time that an FIA world championship racing event takes place in South Africa since the 1993 Formula One Grand Prix at Kyalami. The Cape Town leg scheduled for 26 February 2022 forms part of the new calendar for the 2021/22 season which also sees Vancouver and Seoul joining the schedule.

Cape Town Mayor Dan Plato commented that the event would cement Cape Town’s global reputation as a World leading festival and event destination going on to say: “The event will unlock major investment, job creation and tourism potential by identifying Cape Town as the racing destination of the African continent. We look forward to working towards this event.”

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Picture: Flickr Commons






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