Posts

Desert X Prix 2021 - motor sports (not really) meets environmental protection

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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...

The Daniel Abt files, or: Audi and their double standard

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...

Looking back - my motorsport year 2019

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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...

Formula E race calendar 2019-20 or: What do I care about the rubbish what I said yesterday?

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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...