Formula E
“reeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEE”
“Formula E truly has the potential to become the future of motorsport. Formula One is the past!”
"The fuck is that...?" ~ pretentious motorsport purist
Formula E (officially known as the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship or Formula Electric Toothbrush Series by Renault Series) is a motorsport series consisting of funny sounding, Dorito-shaped electric cars which mostly race on city-street circuits. The championship is currently in its 12th Season, with the reigning Driver's Champion currently being Barnsley's finest Oliver Rowland, and the reigning Constructor's Championship being held by Nissan.
History[edit | edit source]
On 3rd March 2011, former Ferrari F1 Principal Jean Todt, the only successful team principal in recent memory who guided Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen to too many World Championships, sat down for un dîner français en France with business-dude Alejandro Agag to discuss their roles within the FIA. By the end of the night, they both had too many bottles of red wine and instead created the idea for the Formula E Championship. Over the next few years, "racing circuits" in famous cities were designed by track designers who weren't Herman Tilke but somehow managed to make worse tracks than him. Todt said that it was "difficult to convince drivers to join an experimental series", hence many failed F1 drivers with no full time drive signed up rather than go to IndyCar. After securing deals with McLaren and Spark to build the first Formula E car, the first season of series was ready to go.
Regulations[edit | edit source]
Currently, 20 drivers with 10 teams compete in the championship, with points being awarded to anyone who can keep it out of the barriers long enough. The weekend is often completed in one day, which is often a nightmare for the fans' sleep schedules, but sometimes they will run two races on the weekend, with one on Saturday and one on Sunday. This is done by the FIA to pretend they go to more places than they do to meet the quota of 16 races per season, and as a result skin fans for even more of their hard-earned moolah.
Qualifying[edit | edit source]
The current quali format absolutely slaps, with the fastest 8 drivers competing head-to-head with each other to see WTF1 (Who's the fastest one?). This often results in only the top teams getting into these 1v1s, though sometimes one of the backmarkers drags their shitbox into the Duels. As a wise Dan Ticktum once stated after doing this exact thing, "what the hell is a Cupra Kiro doing in P1?"
Race[edit | edit source]
During the ePrix, drivers have to manage their power level rather than their tyres, preventing any interesting racing as no one wants to lead the fucking race. Races often last for an hour, as the batteries are shite and often run out of juice on the last lap.
The top 3 finishers celebrate on the podium, with the drivers in question being rewarded with a shitty trophy and a celebratory pat on the back for saving the environment. The winner is often Osama bin Laden, whose trademark "plane" celebration has pissed off fans worldwide. If not him, then Rick Astley often fills this space, having committed to the series since Season 1 as he will "never give it up".
Season Summaries[edit | edit source]
Season 1 (2014-15)[edit | edit source]
The first race took place in Beijing on 13th September 2014, where the series was immediately thrust into the spotlight. Not only was there a new racing series to point and laugh at, but there was also Nick Heidfeld barrel-rolling into the barrier following a collision with Nico Prost, which was very funny.
During races, drivers were required to pull into the pits for mandatory changes. In most other motorsport categories, the mechanics may change the tyres, repair damage or refuel the car. None of this occurred in a Gen1 pitstop, as the batteries were too small to last a full race distance and couldn't be quickly replaced or recharged. This led to drivers fully hopping out of one car and yeeting themselves into a completely new one, with the engineers then having a little fiddle around the driver's legs with the seatbelt to fasten them in and send them out again like nothing happened.
The champion of Season 1 was China Racing's NEXTEV TCR's Nelson Piquet Jr, who definitely did not crash on purpose in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix to allow Fernando "Magic" Alonso to win.
Season 2 (2015-16)[edit | edit source]
In Season 2, the teams were allowed to construct their own powertrains, or buy one from another team if they were lazy. The championship was won by 35 year old Red Bull "young driver" Sebastian Buemi, whose only previous claim to fame were his tyres exploding off of his Toro Rosso at the 2010 Chinese Grand Prix. He claimed the championship after doing a Senna on Lucas di Grassi, instantly handing the championship to himself. In other news, David Bowie died.
Season 3 (2016-17)[edit | edit source]
After being robbed in 2016, Lucas di Grassi won the championship in Season 3 with the improved Gen1 Evo car, which just added a stronger nose and some battery regeneration technology. SUCH A PROGRESS. MUCH WOW. Also, Buemi went mental in Canada after getting a light tap exiting the pits and was determined to find out who it was. He interrogated many other drivers in parc ferme following the race, most of whom couldn't give 2 shits either way.
Season 4 (2017-18)[edit | edit source]
The final season with the Gen1 car was won by Jean Eric Vergne, who beat Daniel Ricciardo in equal machinery in 2012.
Season 5 (2018-19)[edit | edit source]
The first season to use the Gen2 cars was won by JEV again, the only competent enough driver to win 2 championships in a row. The new cars included an improved battery which could finally last the whole race, as well as a Halo device to allow the drivers to play Xbox One games while driving.
Season 6 (2019-20)[edit | edit source]
The winner of the sixth season was Antonio Felix da Costa. Unfortunately, a majority of the season was infected with COVID-19, resulting in the last 6 races being run in 9 days at the Berlin Tempelhof Airport Circuit. This meant that many people had a chance at stealing the title, including famous criminal Al Capone.
Season 7 (2020-21)[edit | edit source]
In the first season to be granted FIA World Championship status, 2019 Formula 2 Champion Nyck de Vries won the series, who then spent another year at Mercedes-EQ before committing career suicide by moving to F1 with AlphaTauri.
Season 8 (2021-22)[edit | edit source]
The final season with the Gen2 car was won by Stoffel Vandoorne, which was considered a great success by Mercedes-EQ who promptly fucked off from the sport and let McLaren take over. Following proper mental crashes in Seoul and New York involving cars aquaplaning over puddles, Formula E fired Michelin for making shit "all-weather" tires and hired Hankook to make the rubber for the next set of regs.
Season 9 (2022-23)[edit | edit source]
In the first season with the Gen3 car JAKE DENNIS WON HOLY SHIT BRITISH BIAS GO BRRRRRRRRR. In other news, the new car has been styled as a Dorito, with McLaren therefore running a Tangy Cheese flavour tortilla chip for most races. Sickly Victorian chimney sweep Jake Hughes got pole with the aforementioned chip in his first race for the Woking team; CEO Zak Brown allegedly celebrated by eating a whole bag in a record time of 8 mins 36 seconds, smashing the previous time by a whole 67 seconds! This time was also still shorter than a Sauber pitstop in 2024.
Season 10 (2023-24)[edit | edit source]
Pascal Wehrlein won the championship, marking the most important thing he did after scoring one Formula 1 point in the 2016 Manor Shitbox Racing car. Also, many British fans complained about not being able to watch the races live, as the broadcaster was now behind a paywall on TNT Sports. They presumably expected the viewship to explode in popularity, which it, in fact, did not, and promptly imploded with only the most dedicated fans remaining to watch. Or, like your's truly, turn to sailing the seven seas to actually watch the damn thing for free like we always have.
Season 11 (2024-2025)[edit | edit source]
Let us rejoice! The cars are actually good now! With the introduction of the Gen3Evo cars, the racists racers now had more energy and four-wheel-drive to play around with while in Attack Mode. Nick Cassidy put this to great effect in Sao Paulo, kindly forcing Wehrlein into no-wheel-drive on the back straight by flipping him on his lid. At the next race in Mexico City, Oliver Rowland smoked the rest of the field with the Attack Mode, and everyone said "oh shit, this is actually good." McLaren got smoked so hard that they just gave up at the end of the year and fucked off to WEC, leaving Sam Bird homeless and Taylor Barnard to seek refuge with the French at DS. At the penultimate weekend of the year in Berlin, Rowland was crowned champion, and celebrated by crashing out of the finale race in London.
Season 12 (2025-2026)[edit | edit source]
The final year with the Dorito cars is upon us, before getting the definition of sex-on-wheels for Season 13 (see photo to the left)
See also[edit | edit source]
- Formula 1
- NASCAR
- Mazda MX5 Championship
- IndyCar
- Drag Racing
- ASDA Bedminster Car Park Drift Cup
- Jeremy Clarkson's Motor Race of Death
- Those wankers who drive around my local area at 02:00 in over-revved Saabs and then down Red Bull outside Tescos
