Tobi's Motorsport Blog

Greetings, friends of motor racing, in Saudi Arabia, more precisely near the planned city of Neom, the second season of Extreme E, the electric off-road racing series, began at the weekend. As usual, Sir Lewis Hamilton's Team X44 won the qualifying - in the race, the team of his ex-teammate Nico Rosberg came out on top (as almost always, too). Apart from all the criticism of the professionalism in the racing series - various misspelled names on the list of participants, calculation errors in determining time penalties etc. notwithstanding - I now have another big problem with Extreme E: the issue of safety. #DesertXPrix speed limit: 30 km/h Time penalty for speeding in Switch Zone: 1 sec per 1 km/h So, if you drive 57 km/h in the switch zone that's 17 seconds penalty! And the award for the most unprofessional racing series in the world goes once again to... @ExtremeELive #ExtremeE pic.twitter.com/6cqlqce7Zi — Tobias Wirtz (@tobiw_apex) February 19, 2022 Yes, Motorsport is ...

Greetings, friends of motor racing - after a somewhat long break, here comes another blog post from me. The year 2021 is drawing to a close: Formula 1 is still contesting its last race in Abu Dhabi, but in most other racing series the season is already over. However, as we all know, after the season is before the season, so this year the FIA Formula E World Championship held its annual pre-season tests at the Ricardo Tormo circuit near Valencia in late November and early December. Nick Cassidy is getting ready As in the past, the tests took place over a four-day period: There were six hours of testing on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, plus a media day on Wednesday. This was my second time as a journalist in Valencia after 2019. Of course, certain rules apply in the ongoing pandemic: For example, I had to show a PCR test with a negative result that was no more than 48 hours old. Wearing an FFP2 mask was also compulsory in the media centre. So much for the Formula E restrictions, but I ha...

Greetings, friends of motor racing. In today's blog post, I'd like to share some thoughts on Extreme E, which held its first race on the Easter weekend with the Desert X Prix. My conclusion after the debut of the racing series: As good as the idea was, THIS implementation was nothing but a big pile of sh.... And there's nothing to sugarcoat about it at all. Sporting chaos without any value It all started in the days leading up to the X Prix: within just one week, the race series completely overhauled its race format and scoring - twice! The two races with four and five cars respectively became three races with three cars each, the qualifying races became time trials. The third and last race before the final, the "Shoot Out", was not even broadcasted. The change of the race format was probably too spontaneous to change the streaming schedule. And why it is called "Shoot Out"? All three participants - if the cars are still (off-)roadworthy - have already b...

Greetings, friends of motor racing! Today's announcement by Audi to suspend Daniel Abt with immediate effect is a reason for me to put a few personal lines on virtual paper. After all, the bone of contention was also of a virtual nature... What happened? But let's start at the very beginning. Due to the interruption of its championship season, Formula E has created the "Race at Home Challenge". Here, all 24 drivers of the championship compete for points in a season consisting of eight races. As the name suggests, the races are held from home. Each driver has a Formula E simulator at his disposal, the races are held in rFactor 2. The races are not only for the entertainment of the fans, but also for a good cause: donations are collected for the worldwide coronavirus fund of UNICEF. Although they can basically move a race car fast, this is a new experience for most of the drivers, unless they have already gained some private simracing experience. And so th...

The year 2019 is over. Forever. A hundred percent. Irrevocably. There's no way around it. Even if it's not a year that will be positively remembered in every respect, from a motorsport point of view it definitely is. I made a lot of new experiences and met many people. People I already knew, but also many new people who also share my passion for motorsport. Unfortunately, my blog was a little too short in 2019, so I'd like to take the opportunity to take a retrospective, more comprehensive look at my motorsport activities. January: Marrakesh E-Prix The year started for me with my first trip to another continent. Together with my colleague Tobi I travelled to Morocco to cover the first Formula E race of the year on site. Here I met, among others, the ZDF commentator Gari Paubandt and Cedric Hanser from Switzerland, who has become a good friend in the meantime. I talked today with @audiformulae driver and @roborace CEO @LucasdiGrassi about different topics...

Hello friends of motorracing, today I want to share my thoughts about the calendar of the next Formula E season 2019-20. No, I don't want to talk about Switzerland that has been thrown out of the calendar after two years. Neither do I want to talk about that there will be no race in Africa in the coming season. I want to talk about Formula E, that forgets all their convictions and values . Why do I think so? In the past, the race calendar of Formula E has always been optimized. It has been designed to optimize the transport routes of cars and equipment between the races. The travels could be done on the streets, by rail or by ship. Air transports have been avoided whenever possible. A short note: To calculate the distances I assumed that the missing race in China will take place again in Sanya/Hainan. The missing race in december has been ignored. All the distances have been rounded to 10 km / 10 miles up or down. During the 2019-20 season cars and equipment will b...