The ABB FIA Formula E Championship will resume and complete the 2019/2020 season with 6 races over 9 days in Berlin this August.
After postponing their sixth season back in March, Formula E will get to see a fight for the championship after getting FIA approval to finish the season. The unique situation will see drivers and teams camp out in Berlin for six races, split into three back-to-back events, over the course of nine days – on the August 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th, 12th and 13th. Each of the doubleheaders will be contested on a different track layout to create new opportunities for overtaking and strategy.
Formula E had seen five of the initially scheduled fourteen races be contested before the season had to be curtailed. DS Techeetah’s Antonio Felix da Costa is looking to seal his first Drivers’ Championship and currently leads Panasonic Jaguar Racing’s Mitch Evans by eleven points with the two BMW i Andretti drivers of Alexander Sims and Maximillian Guenther only a further ten and twelve points behind respectively.
The current reigning champion, Techeetah’s Jean-Eric Vergne, had a difficult start to the season but had been heading in the right direction with 4th and 3rd places before the hiatus, he will resume the season 36 points behind his teammate.
Despite Vergne’s early trouble, DS Techeetah are leading the way in the Teams’ Championship but only by eight points to BMW i Andretti.
Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport is an open air, self-contained space which means the racing won’t disrupt the public and access to the area can easily be controlled. The events will be held behind closed doors with up to a maximum 1,000 people on site at any one time. Teams will each bring 20 staff, while all interviews will be carried out virtually as no members of the media will be present.
Strict safety measures such as mandatory coronavirus testing before the races, screening at arrival each day, face masks, social distancing and limited crossover between work groups. Formula E has created a 40 page set of guidelines for the event which can be read in full online.
In this morning’s press release Formula E’s CEO, Jamie Reigle, said: “Since taking action to suspend our season in March, we have emphasised a revised calendar which places the health and safety of our community first, represents Formula E’s distinct brand of city-centre racing and offers an exciting conclusion to the compelling season of racing we had seen so far. We’re heading to Berlin Tempelhof, a venue that our teams, drivers and fans love, to stage a nine-day festival of racing with three back-to-back double-headers.
“The festival will feature three track layouts, presenting a new challenge and creating the conditions for an unpredictable and drama-filled climax to our season. The team at Formula E has been working incredibly hard over the past weeks to enable us to go racing again in Berlin. I’d like to thank the FIA, our manufacturers, teams and partners for their continued support, the city of Berlin for their cooperation and flexibility and our fans for their patience.”
There will be some driver changes when the season resumes after Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler fired Daniel Abt and Pascal Wehrlein left Mahindra Racing during the hiatus.
