Formula E: Premiere in SP has crashes and Brazilians at the end – 03/25/2023 – Sport

As a visiting card to Brazil, Formula E promoted a race in São Paulo with good twists this Saturday (25th), on the street circuit designed around the Anhembi Sambadrome.

The debut of the Brazilian stage put the riders in front of a layout with which they have no experience and this caused crashes, withdrawals and even affected the performance of the Brazilians.

Sérgio Sette Câmara, from the NIO team, came in the 17th and last position, while Lucas Di Grassi, from Mahindra, was 13th.

Who, in fact, looked at home were the New Zealanders Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy, who fought for the victory until the last few meters. Evans got the upper hand.

There were also five retirements: the Swiss Edoardo Mortara and Nico Müller, the British Jake Dennis and the French Sacha Fenestraz and Norman Nato did not complete the race after crashes.

From the beginning, Brazilians did not have an easy life either. Right in qualifying training, Di Grassi hit the wall at the entrance to Olavo Fontoura, damaged the right front suspension and ended up in last position.

“It was horrible. It was a classification that we were fine”, he lamented.

Sette Câmara was also not very lucky and scored only the ninth time.

With the two Brazilians at the end of the grid, the public decided to embrace the Portuguese Antônio da Costa. He started in second and fought for the victory until the end, but made a mistake in the final laps when he tried to take the lead and ended up in fourth, frustrating the expectation of the good public that was present.

It is true that the organization expected a greater number of gifts. On the eve of the race, the CEO of the category, Jamie Reigle, told Sheet that his expectation was to reach the maximum capacity of Anhembi, with around 25 thousand people.

However, not all stands were completely full. Until the publication of this text, the official audience had not been disclosed, but it was visibly below the expectations of the organizers.

With less than ten years of existence, the world championship is still not very well known around here. In addition, with the exception of the Brazilian stage, broadcast live by Band, the championship is not shown on open TV and, therefore, has not yet broken the bubble of those who are passionate about motorsport.

It also didn’t help much that the event was held on the same weekend as the three-day Lollapalooza concert, a festival that attracts many young people, FE’s target audience.

The category understands that, in general, younger players pay greater attention to sustainability issues, the main characteristic of the competition’s DNA, often compared to F1 since its debut year, in 2014.

Although it was never an objective to rival the main category of motorsport, the electric car championship quickly became a laboratory for the development of technologies, something in which F1 has always been at the forefront.

“Electric cars are the future”, acknowledged Emerson Fittipaldi, two-time F1 world champion (1972 and 1974), present at Anhembi during the FE weekend.

For him, “F1 will always be F1” with combustion cars, but it will be up to FE to develop technologies that will be seen in street cars. “By having a clean energy matrix, Brazil has a lot of advantage in that.”

Since its first championship, FE has had 100% electric cars, while F1 currently has only 25% of the cars’ power generated by kinetic energy recovery.

In addition to the sustainable aspect, this difference also affects the sound of vehicles. Those who went to Anhembi were surprised by the noise, or rather, its absence. The sound that came from the track was similar to that of old slot machines, present in the sambodrome at a sponsor’s stand.

For those who like motor racing, the famous roar of the engines was missing. On the other hand, there are those who prefer it that way. “Téo likes a stroller a lot, but I don’t think he would take it to F1 because of the noise. It’s quieter here”, says Tatiane Moura, 34, a therapist, who went to Anhembi with her one-year-old son and her husband.

While speaking to the reporter, her husband was in line to charge a magnetic wristband used by the event with cash so that fans could pay for drinks and food.

The system was simple to use, but the process of placing credits generated some queues, which irritated some in attendance. “Waiting almost an hour to spend R$300 is not enough,” says banker Leandro Rio, 45, who went to the race with his son Gustavo, 10.

Friends Giuliana Amarante, 28, and Ana Lopes, 26, found a better way out. “We stopped to see the prices at a kiosk and we were able to load it right there, without queues. But there was no sign. We were the ones who found out”, says Giuliana. “But it’s been a nice event. We’ve just arrived and we’re enjoying it”, says Ana.