Who will win the first ePrix?

It's impossible to predict what's going to happen at the first ePrix as Formula e begins its mission to convert the masses to electric racing. There are so many variables from what the racing is going to be like down to how people react to the racing.

There are obviously plusses and minuses to the current concept. Many of the minus points will be eradicated by the second season and many of the plus points can only continue to get stronger. Let's get the minus points out of the way first and we'll start with the noise. Now I don't actually think it's that bad and if you compare what's happened in Formula 1 they'll have nothing to worry about. 

So many people complained at the start of the year about the F1 noise but as the season has gone on the arguments about it have ironically quietened down because as good as an engine sound can be, what people want to see is racing, you provide enough good quality racing and the series will be fine. As it is Formula e sounds like radio controlled cars with added whoosh factor as they go by, admittedly about 70db down on a current F1 car. 

The speed could be an issue too. I read a comparison on Autosport today between a Formula Ford car and a Formula e car. The Formula e was only faster by half a second. They're also about 130hp down on a GP3 car, even more when the Formula e cars are turned down for the race.

This shouldn't be a problem as street tracks will make them look quick as they usually have lots of slow corners and the cars will be quick out of them as with a 0-60 of 3 seconds, they are certainly not slow on acceleration. 

The Formula e car produces 200kw maximum power for 270bhp in qualifying and 150kw in the race, equivalent to around 200bhp. I think they'll look plenty fast up against the walls of a street track. As I've written before I think the major concern is that the drivers will have to swap cars half way through a 45 minute race which doesn't give too much of a positive image for electric vehicles. The positive side to this is that teams are already working on wireless charging technology which should hopefully get rid of this annoying slight.

I also don't like the fan boost idea where three drivers get five seconds of added power in the race decided by the voting public. It's interesting, it's interactive but I think unnecessary. The sport is already doing very well on the social media front without this gimmick.

The positives are a mostly very strong driver line up which can only improve if the series proves a success. Ultra professional teams, city centre one day events, the green message and the advancement of green technology which if and when its advanced will get rid of a lot of the problems I've mentioned above are all reasons to get excited for the sport. Soon they'll be no car changes and the power will increase and electric cars will become a whole lot sexier.

So who will win?

It's obviously extremely difficult to judge who's going to win around the tight twisty confines of the track they've laid out around the Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium in Beijing, China. It's a brand new series which hasn't had a huge amount of testing but from the major test days they've had around Donnington Park it's Sebastien Buemi who has been the pace setter on four of them. Sometimes by quite a significant margin.

He has quite the pedigree being a Red Bull backed driver and will definitely be the one to look out for for inititial glory. Lucas di Grassi was the only other driver to be fastest at a test but many drivers have been up near the top of the times over the testing period. But Buemi did always seem to have a fairly significant gap and seems to have adapted to these cars the fastest.

But it' one thing driving on a proper race track like Donnington which is fast and flowing, it's entirely different when you're going around a street track, so in reality it's a completely clean sheet of paper and it'll be very difficult to predict anything accurately.

It starts tomorrow at 9am UK time on ITV4; an entirely new form of motor sport which has the seeds to grow into something wonderful but it's very concept relies on the racing being electrifying. Let's hope we enjoy a great introduction to electric car competition.

all photos taken from fiaformulae.com