It’s almost time for seasonal selection boxes to be desecrated!
That heady festive tradition of gorging on favoured confectionery, while slowly losing consciousness to a TV programme you’d never otherwise consider watching.
We all did it as kids, didn’t we? Instead of carefully selecting from said tawdry cellophane box, you’d scoff the lot before Christmas dinner, attracting diffident looks from already tipsy parents.
But what has this to do with Formula E?
Well, think of the selection box as sporting format ideas that the FIA and the promoter Formula E Operations have assembled.
There was the long forgotten FanBoost (almost a credible sounding choccy bar in itself!) - that was surely the equivalent of the dreaded Caramac of the box. The prized dignity of Dairy Milk is definitely the attack mode equivalent.
And now there is the Double Decker (Pit Boost). It’s very much an acquired taste, and it’s coming to a post-Christmas scene near you very soon.
Probably in Jeddah on February 15, the second of the double header races in the Saudi Arabian seaside resort. The big question doing the rounds in Formula E right now is: will the Pit Boost idea just be a sickly treat that tips the multiple strategy points that already exist in the championship already into needless over-indulgence?
After the Sao Paulo season-opener that’s what the forthcoming introduction of fast-charging pitstops (to be known as Pit Boost) might feel like. That means some races will feature not just the new-style attack mode, but also a mandatory pitstop for a charging top-up that will involve the car being stationary for approximately 30 to 35 seconds.
Trying to keep track of what eight minutes of 350kW running via the two transponder loops of attack mode was doing across 22 cars wasn’t the work of a moment. The new grippier tyres and all-wheel-drive function via an active front powertrain now means that after two seasons of neutered 350kW running in races, all hell's breaking loose when drivers head for attack mode now.
The pack racing is still there but the curve in which it is managed and strategised is now much flatter, meaning that there is more propensity for later attacks if you can look after your rubber and treat your thermals well.
It makes for fascinating racing and that is what we got in Sao Paulo. There was barely a time you could glance away. In fact, I did momentarily with a few laps to go, in order to change driver radio channels. When I looked back the reigning champion was on his head and debris was scattered all over the road.
It was a thrill ride and peak Formula E. That it was done in the first race of a new season makes one thirst for more. To give you an idea of how close it was, the top five qualifying times in the duel phases were covered by 0.090s!
With the race a thriller and having no filler, the question started to be asked immediately after it. Why meddle with a masterpiece? Why shoehorn pitstops into it too?
The reasons are relatively simple. The suppliers of the pit boosting equipment are contractually obliged to deliver it and it’s well overdue. The promoter has it signed and sealed. Therefore, the governing body is acting upon that to make sure it happens.
But the actors don’t want it and have made that long since crystal clear.
While that is one aspect to why Formula E doesn’t need the return of pitstops, the other is perhaps even more significant.
That is the simple fact of Formula E becoming so confusing and so in your face that any sporting narrative just becomes a storm of novelty inspired sporting artifice.
“We'll have to think carefully about introducing pit boost,” reckons Maserati MSG team principal Cyril Blais.
“It will add another layer of complexity, which could be very interesting for the engineers and the team, but it could be hard for the fans to follow and to understand exactly what's going on.
“The race needs to be interesting for the team, for the drivers, but obviously for the fans, it has to be enjoyable but understandable.”
With no double stacking allowed in the pits and strategic disadvantage therefore guaranteed for one driver in a team, it will also prove unfair on occasions. Put it this way. Would you want to activate the radio and tell Jean-Eric Vergne that his team-mate is essentially getting preference on this occasion? No, me neither.
“I'm very scared because I would not want the championship to be decided on a common path that is not built by our team or the manufacturer,” Vergne told The Race when asked about pit boosting coming in.
“I think it's extremely risky and looking at how it [testing] went, I'm sceptical just about the pure technological side of things, not talking about the race, the show that it can bring. I have no opinion [on the show].
“It's always nice to have novelties but I wish that we're not going to see the championship being decided on a common part.”
Where we are currently is that the FIA is targeting the February 2025 Jeddah event for pit boosting to be added into the sporting format in the second race of that weekend. But…
“I don’t think they’re certain,” Envision Racing’s Sylvain Filippi told The Race last week ahead of a brief test session of the boosting equipment, which was said to have gone well.
“We basically wait for the conclusions and we do all the things that we’re asked to do and test them, and then they’ll do the failure rates or success rates or whatever.
“I think they still want to be really confident, otherwise they would have decided already. I think they plan to introduce this in Jeddah.
“But I think we still have to go through a few more gates for that to happen, which is fine. That’s a good process. And if it happens, then, I guess pitstops are back.”
It may give some short term headlines with surprise winners, fortuitous strategies and a tombola-like shake-up of the order. Yet, Formula E may want to keep an eye on the bigger picture, which is manufacturers, teams and partners getting fed up with being part of a lottery. More serious perhaps could be the rank confusion that it reflects into consumers’ eyes if the racing becomes impossible to follow.
Like selection boxes, too much of one thing in sport has its sell by date and that date usually comes around quite quickly.
