Rome: Something Missing; Something We'd Missed
(copyright FIA Formula E)
Like a beautifully rendered picture of a city you think you know, with the altered ambiance that tells you something is up, the Rome E-Prix of 2021 was Formula E’s return to pukka city street racing in Europe, and it was as enthralling as anyone could have expected, while something was still missing from the picture.
The racing on the new track was great (copyright FIA Formula E)
Without grandstands full of fans, Formula E will always be a diminished spectacle, in no way due to the organisers, who continue to operate a flexible arrangement to calendar management that other sports could learn a great deal from. It is to the enormous credit of everyone, from the racing teams and drivers to the commercial team, that this championship built for city street races is still rolling.
The sport will always stand and fall on the quality of racing it provides, and a dry-wet-dry Formula E double-header gave everyone watching a reminder, after geopolitics and serious accidents marred the Diriyah season-opener, that motorsport can be joyous, candied, escapism. The new configuration of the Rome track, modified to better take into account the increased speeds of the Gen2 car, was also a challenge for drivers, and a joy for viewers.
Race one, Saturday
Jean-Eric Vergne won on Saturday (copyright FIA Formula E)
Jean-Eric Vergne took advantage of carnage behind him and a new DS powertrain in his Techeetah to win Saturday’s race. Vergne, after nightmare starts to the past two seasons, may well be pinching himself that he will not have a mammoth fightback in order to be in contention in the latter rounds.
The Frenchman did not have it his own way in the race; the race began behind the cute new Mini Electric safety car, with second-placed Andre Lotterer taking a punt on the first lap of green-flag racing, punting himself and polewinner Stoffel Vandoorne out of contention. Oliver Rowland’s Nissan led until the Englishman received a drive-through penalty, meaning the race became a four-way strategic masterclass between Vergne, Envision Virgin’s Robin Frijns, Diriyah round-one winner Nyck de Vries, and the wiliest stalking horse of all, Audi’s Lucas di Grassi.
When Frijns challenged Vergne optimistically with his final gasp of Attack Mode, di Grassi made no mistake and kept his car planted. It looked like the Audi driver, enjoying much better performance from his powertrain in 2021, would challenge for victory, but a technical problem robbed the Brazilian of that chance. Vandoorne and de Vries were put out of contention by contact while taking evasive action to avoid di Grassi.
Vergne was followed over the line by Sam Bird and Mitch Evans, both of them having daring races to surge through from 11th and 12th on the grid, with Bird completing the move of the race on de Vries, the kind of late-braking divebomb that, when he pulls it off, Bird makes look a certainty. In spite of troubles in the second race, in which Bird was involved in a late-stage accident, the new Jaguar recruit leaves Rome leading the drivers’ standings from Evans.
Race two, Sunday
Stoffel Vandoorne, Sunday’s winner (copyright FIA Formula E)
Another Safety-Car start (which was not entirely for publicity reasons for Mini, given that the circuit was moist in places), and again the race-leader found himself unstuck, at the same spot as Lotterer and Vandoorne had been a day earlier. Nick Cassidy, enjoying his first Formula E pole position, spun due to what was speculated by Sam Smith on The Race to be the result of the pre-regen mechanical brakes on the Gen2 car having a different level of sensitivity to brake-by-wire.
While the brake failure for Edoardo Mortara in Diriyah, resolved to the FIA’s satisfaction by a software fix, is thought to be totally unconnected to Cassidy’s issue, Formula E’s braking systems’ complexities were on show again on Sunday. Cassidy is an experienced driver who, prior to joining Envision Virgin, was trusted by Toyota as a works driver in Japan. It seems unlikely he lost the car due to a straightforward driver error, though it cannot be ruled out totally.
Norman Nato had the lead of the race after Cassidy’s issue, having shown in qualifying what a quick learner he is, looking much more on the pace of Venturi teammate Edoardo Mortara than he had in Saudi Arabia. He fell back after the first rounds of Attack Mode, with Vandoorne coming through the shake-up in a relatively comfortable lead from Pascal Wehrlein’s Porsche.
Alexander Sims took an opportunist second on Sunday (copyright FIA Formula E)
Vandoorne continued to lead after a full-course yellow bunched up the field again, but with sixteen minutes to go, Alexander Sims showed hair-trigger reactions to pass the less alert Wehrlein on the transition to green flag conditions. Another Safety Car call, after Audi’s Rene Rast crashed spectacularly in the closing laps, put Sims’ elevation in jeopardy, but Vandoorne and the placid-sounding Englishman held on at the head of the field, from Nato, who was desperately conserving energy as he held off Wehrlein. He ran out just before the line and was disqualified, which left Venturi Team Principal Susie Wolff upset on his behalf due to what she said was a team error, but also elevated Mortara to fourth, another net-positive for both Mercedes and its customer.
What’s next?
Sam Bird leads the championship into Valencia (copyright FIA Formula E)
While closed-door city races were never on the original agenda, that doesn’t take anything away from how welcome this was as entertainment, especially as the EU lurches through the latest chapter of its dysfunctional vaccine rollout, and people grasp for any kind of normality.
Formula E heads next to a double-header at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit, a mainstay of the testing schedule, but never envisaged as a race venue. With the exception of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, this will be the first time Gen2 cars have raced on a permanent circuit. Part of what makes the cars spectacular to watch is the feeling of speed that comes from tightly-packed streets lined with buildings, and corners dotted with major landmarks.
While Rome’s fascist-era architecture in the EUR business district has dark origins, it became a symbol of post-Second World War hope, and is now a favourite hangout of Romans, with a large artificial lake surrounded by parkland. The race was filmed expertly to show off the speed of the cars through the streets, with the latest tracking cameras capturing how nimble drivers had to be. Constructions such as the 1959 Obelisk of Marconi also lent a sense of scale to the Formula E field.
Much as the Valencia circuit, a short drive from the city, will be viewed optimistically, both it and the following race in Monaco represent a necessary distancing from the ordinary public this category was created to cater to. In these times, we’ll take what we can, and the joy of the winning driver is still as authentic as it ever was.