hey on this episode of wheelhouse we
went to new york city and we're watching
some freaking formula
e hell yeah yeah
thank you am i getting a new episode
maybe if you sign a release
formula e might be one of the most
polarizing motorsports
on the planet but my mission today is to
get you stoked on it the abb
fia formula e championship is an open
wheel racing series
11 teams field two cars each for a total
field of 22 drivers
which includes some former formula one
drivers they race around
short circuits and the first driver to
cross the finish line after 45 minutes
plus one lap
wins i love formula e and frankly want
more people to watch it with
here are five reasons you should be
watching formula e
reason number one to watch formula e
these things
are electric that's right they run on
lightning
lightning lightning lightning lightning
look at me i'm james ah
all cars have a baseline power of 200
kilowatts which is about
270 horsepower but they're good for a
2.8 second
0-60 and a top speed of 174 miles an
hour that's
pretty sick all right so one thing that
i
really love about any sort of racing is
the sound
and formula e is definitely different
it's not like a roaring engine
because they don't have engines they
have electric motors but i'm actually
pretty impressed with how loud they are
going around they're not like ear
splittingly loud where you need
earmuffs
but they have a very unique noise they
kind of sound like the covenant from
halo driving
that's a reference halo 3 is the best
one i don't want to hear about kayla
reach
the cars have a limited battery capacity
and the drivers have to manage it to
finish the rate
there's no swapping batteries in the
middle of the race which they kind of
actually used to do they used to
pit and then jump into a second
identical car halfway through
they don't do that anymore the teams
have to closely watch their cars energy
levels so they won't run out of juice
before the end
one example of energy mismanagement
happened in february
at the mexico city e pre an early red
flag for a crash extended the race by
one lap
and the nissan team miscalculated how
many electrons they had left in their
figurative
electricity tanks the nissan drivers who
were running in third and fourth place
ran out of juice at the beginning of the
last lap and they ended up in
20th and 21st a very disappointing
finish
because of a relatively simple mistake
[Music]
the second reason to watch formula e
it's a straight up video game
drivers can get an extra boost of power
during the race it can happen
in two ways the first way is called
attack mode which is an extra 25
kilowatts that's picked up by driving
through an
activation zone on the track 25
kilowatts is like 30 extra horsepower
you know when uh crash team racing the
little
boost areas before jumps it's kind of
like that the activation zone is off
of the racing line so the driver has to
give up a little bit of lap time and
maybe even a position to collect the
power boost but the boost itself
could make up for it later in the race
they don't have to use the power boost
right there they can save it
and use it later every driver has to
activate attack mode a set number of
times
at each race how many activations they
are and how long the boost
lasts is different at every track and
the officials don't announce them
until one hour before the race starts
and that gives teams a very limited
amount of time to strategize
how they're going to use that to their
advantage the second way to get a power
bump
and it's a big point of contention among
formula e fans
is called fan boost fans vote for their
favorite drivers
online during the six days before a race
and up to five minutes after the race
has started so
the drivers won't even know if they'll
get that power boost until they're
already in the heat of battle
the five racers with the most votes get
40 to 50 kilowatts more power to use
just for
five seconds during the second half of
the race that's like 50 to 65 more
horsepower that's a lot
formula e is the only racing series that
has
anything like this spectators can tell
when the drivers are using one of the
power boosts
by the color of the leds on the car's
safety halo when attack mode is engaged
it lights up blue
and when fan boost is engaged they light
up magenta
that way the fans can see each driver's
race strategy
in action attack mode has been a
crowd-pleasing addition to the series
but
a lot of people think fan boost is an
unfair popularity contest that dilutes
the true spirit of racing
my honest opinion i think it's kind of
corny but
also kind of cool obviously they want
more fans to engage with the sport and
that totally makes sense
but imagine if the nba lowered one
team's hoop a few feet because more
people voted for them
there's stoffel vandoorne
aka my bro just kidding we haven't met
fan boost is a new idea so i'm willing
to see how far it goes
if it doesn't work out in the long run
then we'll just scrap it for now it's
kind of cool
reason numero trace to watch formula e
is that skill matters most formula e
is one of the only big racing series
left with a driver
matters more than the car look i love
formula one but
the best drivers can't win if they're
not in the best car i mean sometimes
they can but
only if the best cars crash out in
formula e the cars
are almost exactly the same the
batteries are all the same and there are
price caps on the powertrain
and chassis components to keep
manufacturers from trying to outspend
each other to build a faster car
[Music]
something cool about formula e is that
they let the fans
walk onto the grid before the race
there's really no other racing series
that i can think of that live to do that
pretty rad it's very hot by the way it's
sweaty just sweaty right now
this mechanics checking tire pressures
right here we can see the braking system
honestly the brakes are a lot smaller
than i thought they'd be teams provide
their own motors inverters and gearboxes
and can tweak the suspension
just a little but they all run the same
michelin pilot sport
all season tires even down to the same
exact
tire pressures they've got tires that
really resemble more what you'd see on
your own car
they're very skinny like i'm pretty sure
the tires on my mustang are about that
wide
at the racing series the slicks have
very fat
profiles these cars handle more like
your car would
than say other high profile open wheel
cars
this makes the racing incredibly close
and it means the power boosts i talked
about before
are that much more important formally e
has a ton of passing and that's even
more impressive given the fact that
all the races are run on narrow street
forces
reason number four the tracks so the
crazy thing about formula e is that all
all all of their courses are on street
courses
which is i think different from any
other racing series in the world so what
we're gonna do is take a lap in a bmw i8
and see what one of these street courses
is all about
the street courses are only one to two
miles long and they're really
really narrow which makes passing pretty
hairy
dude thank you that was awesome i think
my phone fell back there
my phone is in here somewhere i would
try to fight for you
my phone is in the safety car somewhere
we'll see
these courses are so narrow it's insane
that they're gonna have like 20 plus
cars on the track at the same time
there's a lot of action bumping and
drama and the results
are super unpredictable there have been
like 12 different winners
in 15 races so far this season it was
insane
there aren't too many other racing
series out there that can go a whole
season without a clear winner
right up until the end and formerly is
one of them the stakes
are super high and it keeps the suspense
up at every single race
all right you know it's pretty funny
being in the uh
pit lane here uh being in these vip
areas that we've been so graciously
afforded a lot of uh side-to-side
cheat kissing a lot of fancy people
stuff going on
definitely don't feel like i belong here
because uh you know i'm just a
small town boy in the big city i think
what's so cool to me is like how many
people are here i didn't know that
there's such a strong fan base for
formula e
that's inappropriate to say about the
michelin man anyway as
i was saying man like it's it's so cool
to see so many different kinds of people
out here
supporting this sport you know i can't
imagine that it's easy to be a
a new motorsport any kind of score what
if they made up a new kind of football
they brought it here where the hell is
alex hilarious there he is alex
it's so exciting to imagine where the
sport will go from here
i'm really excited
[Music]
reason number five to watch formula e
it's a weird one
and it also involves gaming formula e
recently launched the formula e
live ghost racing mobile game you can
download it on your phone
and drive in actual races against the
actual drivers
the game takes data from the races and
uses it to recreate how things actually
went down
to my knowledge nothing like this has
ever been done before it's still a work
in progress
and they're developing pc and vr
versions for the near future
i've heard mixed reviews about the
quality of the game but
i think it's a really interesting idea i
mean we all know that
driving sims are a realistic way to gain
real racing skills without a real
car because you know like gran turismo
academy has proved that formula e
is definitely pushing the development of
electric cars forward but with this sim
stuff
they might be developing drivers too
and the racing is honestly super
exciting
[Applause]
they sound so cool that's so awesome a
single car by itself
but like all of them at the same time
you guys gotta come to this you gotta
you gotta
hear it for yourself it's really cool
formula e
put me in a car i'll do good i'll lose
some weight that might be an issue
hit the treadmill it's one of the
coolest racing experiences
i've ever been to and i think there's a
ton of potential in the sport i can't
wait to see how big this thing can grow
plain and simple it's just really cool
not only am i a believer in formula e
but i'm
also a believer that new york pizza is
better
we rented some bikes and we're going to
ride down to the world trade center what
happened you got lost
yeah oh yeah alex here cross traffic and
around like
15 cars took a took a right and then i
totally lost him and
the second was a little scared i thought
it was gonna be i thought i was gonna be
lost
in new york like kevin mcallister and
home alone two
you