How fast is Formula E?

[andrewcliffe]

Well, they're testing the latest 2016/7 season 3 cars at Donington this week. They're using the full GP circuit with no false chicanes.

Fastest lap yesterday was champion Sebastian Buemi (ex-F1) in the works Renault supported car at 1m30.143s, just slightly faster than Chris Hodgen's 2004 Dallara qualifying time for race 2 (1m30.224s), and FL today, Jean-Eric Vergne (ex-F1) 1m29.634s which was just slightly faster than Ben Cater's Race 1 FL (1m29.934s) in his F399 car.

Slowest times were in the 1m33 - 1m34 bracket, making Formula E with their works teams and ex-F1 drivers, broadly equal to Mono F3 and the top Mono2000 drivers.

These times were set with the car in race 170kw mode (225bhp approx). They can turn up the wick to 200kw (268bhp) for qualifying.

And all the Mono drivers can finish a race without having to jump into a second car halfway through the race.

[RobManser]

That's really interesting, thanks, I'd often wondered that but never looked it up. JEV's time is now being listed on Wikipedia as a new lap record for Formula E.

The F3 lap record (obviously a free ride height with more power than Mono F3) is listed as just over 2 seconds faster than Ben's fastest Mono F3 race lap. So given that both of those ex-F1 drivers (Buemi and Vergne) raced in F3, then GP2/FR3.5 respectively and then F1 (probably around a 1 minute lap at Donny GP for the latest cars), what on earth do they think stepping straight from F1 back to Formula E lap times, Formula E's 800kg weight (yes, really!) and no engine sound?...

[andrewcliffe]

Last time British F3 went there was in 2014, and the quickest of a poor field managed a 1.24.3, so I'd expect a mid to high 1.23 possible.