2017 NYC ePrix Recap

One month ago today, I attended the second of two races in the inaugural New York City ePrix. Life has been busy preparing for college, and I have not gotten a chance to properly recap my experience or share it with you all.

This was the third time I've attended a professional motorsport race but the first time it wasn't a NASCAR-sanctioned event. The previous two times have both been at Dover International Speedway, my home track. I went to Sprint Cup qualifying and the Camping World Truck race (the latter of which got rained out) in Spring 2009 and the Sprint Cup race in Spring 2012. (A. J. Allmendinger signed my diecast car!)

Now, NASCAR was my first motorsport love (thanks, Pixar), but over the years I've developed an interest and appreciation for virtually all forms of auto racing.

So when I heard Formula E, the first all-electric single-seater championship, was coming to Brooklyn...I knew I had to be there.

The timing of the event actually worked out perfectly. My family had been vacationing in Vermont the week prior to the event, so rather than going home and driving back up, my father and I arrived in Brooklyn Saturday evening. (I would have loved to have been there for the Saturday race too, but beggars can't be choosers. It simply didn't work out.) Of all people, my dad's sister who currently lives in London found us a small hotel in the city in which we would spend the night (particularly helpful considering that, being a street race on a temporary circuit, this event had absolutely ZERO parking).

With that, we were able to get up early and get there pretty much as soon as the gates opened. We walked from the hotel to the Barclays Center (home of the Brooklyn Nets and, as of 2015, the New York Islanders), hopping onto a shuttle bus that would take us to the street circuit.

It's a good thing were got there early, because we got a chance to walk in the paddock!

Aside from the race itself, this was absolutely the highlight of the day. If you're attending any racing event, get there early. You never know what kind of perks you might get as a result.

Katherine Legge was doing television coverage for the world feed. She's quite an accomplished racer herself, having raced in Formula E in its debut season and, perhaps most notably, the Indianapolis 500.

In the background of that picture is driver (and eventual 2016-17 Formula E champion!) Lucas di Grassi. After doing an interview, di Grassi posed with some fans before being called back into the garage by his team...

...and this is as close as I got to a picture with him. I did make brief eye contact with him and wished him well in the race as he was walking back in to talk to his team, but I didn't quite get a chance to pose with him. Oh well. At least he and I are in the same un-photoshopped picture.

I also got to snap a photo of this guy, Sam Bird, talking to his team prior to qualifications. Bird had won the previous day's race and ended up winning this one as well. 

Considering I bought a DS Virgin racing hat and polo shirt at the merchandise stand, I think it's safe to say I have a favorite team and driver now.

After they closed the paddock for qualifications, we looked around for a bit, visiting the Jaguar team's exhibit and the Allianz eVillage.

The video above is a clip from the "eRace." (Not ePrix, eRace. There is a difference.) This took place in the Visa Gaming Arena. All morning, fans were allowed into the gaming arena to set the fastest lap times they could on a Formula E racing simulator, with the top four fans getting to compete against four professional drivers in the "eRace."

I know what you're thinking. (Ben! Did you try it out?! How did you do?!)

Well, I wanted too, but I got to the exhibit too late. If I had headed straight there after the paddock had closed, maybe I could have set a lap time, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. (Lesson learned for an ePrix I attend in the future.)

If you want to watch the full eRace, here it is:

After the eRace was an autograph session, where I got autographs from drivers António Félix da Costa, Nick Heidfeld, and Felix Rosenqvist.

Then, it was time for the main event.

Here's the amateur video I took of the start...

and a couple of more photos...

It was around the midpoint of the race that we finally met up with the third member of our group, Lucas Marrero. Lucas is quite a cool guy. He's a longtime friend of my grandmother and late grandfather who has traveled all over the world and done too many incredibly awesome things to keep track of.

Seriously, those Dos Equis commercials are lying to you. Lucas is the real "Most Interesting Man in the World."

But anyway, back to the race. After 58 minutes and 9.388 seconds of hard racing (that's not a number I made up in my head), Bird completed his weekend sweep by winning the race. Of the two guys I saw in the paddock earlier in the morning, one went on to win the race, while the other went on to win the season championship two weeks later in Montréal. How cool is that?

After the race, we waited for a shuttle bus back to the Barclays Center (the wait for the bus might have been longer than the race itself), and had a late lunch/early dinner (linner?) at Shake Shack. (For my Delaware friends, this one was far better than the new one in the Christiana Fashion Center. I have no idea why...but it was.) After a great day of racing and catching up with Lucas, we returned to the hotel and made the two-hour drive back home.

And that's it! Formula E was a great experience. It still has its critics, but the series is really taking off. BMW, Mercedes, and Porsche have confirmed that they will be joining the series as full works teams in a few seasons, and there is a push to get a Japanese and an American manufacturer involved as well.

The series races (mostly) on temporary street circuits in some of the biggest cities all over the world. If you're interested in attending an ePrix yourself, here's the provisional 2017-18 schedule at the moment:

And while it's not set in stone, it looks like they're coming back to New York!

Breaking up the pack

Photo: Motorsport.com

If you missed the IndyCar Series race at Texas last Saturday night, you missed a good one.

But while the racing was exciting, not everybody saw the event as a roaring success. Sébastien Bourdais, who is likely out for the season as he continues to recover from injuries sustained at Indianapolis, is apparently not sorry to have been on the sidelines for the race, using some colorful language to express his displeasure with the racing that took place.

Scott Dixon, who was in contention for the win until a crash with Takuma Sato in the closing laps (pictured), stated that additional testing on the new Texas layout could have prevented it from becoming a pack race. The nature of the racing at Texas eliminated all but six cars from the lead lap by the end of the night, leading to discussions over how to minimize such racing in the future.

Ed Carpenter, however, is unconvinced that the pack nature of the race should be blamed on the cars, saying it may be the drivers who need to change in order to avoid the major accidents that took place. Only time will tell. The series does not return to an oval greater than a mile in length until Pocono on August 20.

Dear Honda...

The Power of Dreams?

Dear Honda,

I respect you guys about as much as I respect any other car manufacturer that doesn't particularly pique my interest. I don't love your cars, but I certainly don't hate them either. My mother's Honda Civic lasted her fifteen years. Your cars are known for their reliability.

Which begs the question: what the heck is going on with your racing engines?

Now, I understand your early struggles. You re-entered Formula One in 2015, the second year of the V6 engine era. Mercedes, Ferrari, and Renault already had a year's worth of experience off of which to build. You showed slight improvement in 2016, but were still well off the pace, never making it onto the podium for the second straight season.

There's no excuse at this point though. McLaren make a good chassis. They have good drivers. As Fernando Alonso stated in March, there is "only one problem: that is the power unit."

And it's quite a big problem at the moment. So much so that Alonso basically said, "Forget it, the season's already lost so I'm gonna go run the Indy 500."

Now, it seems you guys create durable, strong engines over in IndyCar. At least, that's what you bragged about in 2010. But there were a few Honda engine issues in practice, so reliability was not a sure thing this month of May.

Alonso did quite well, running up front until about twenty laps to go when he dropped out because, what else, his Honda engine failed.

Come on. Really? Even in IndyCar, where you have far more recent experience than your Chevrolet counterparts, Alonso can't trust you guys?

I'm just going to keep this short and sweet, Honda: get your act together.

Alonso is a pure talent. Unfortunately, largely thanks to your engines, that talent is being wasted at the moment.

The Greatest Day in Racing

Last year's three winners: Lewis Hamilton, Alexander Rossi, Martin Truex Jr.
(Photo: NBCSN)

There are three days I look forward to every year more so than any others: Christmas, Easter, and the Sunday before Memorial Day.

Considering that's the day with the most prestigious Formula One race, the most prestigious IndyCar race, and (arguably) the second most prestigious NASCAR race, it makes sense that this is one of my favorite days on the calendar.

Say what you want about Monaco and the kind of racing it produces; I still love it. Strategy becomes that much more important considering how it's virtually impossible to pass. Indianapolis only gets better with age. The past few years have seen some incredible finishes, and I expect nothing different tomorrow. Charlotte, NASCAR's endurance race, will be a bit of an unknown this year. There's an extra stage around which teams must strategize, but with stage racing having provided so much excitement this season, I hope for more of the same in the 600.

So who will win? For Monaco, I'm going with Kimi Räikkönen. After snapping a streak of nearly nine seasons without a pole, assuming Räikkönen gets a good start and Ferrari don't mess up his strategy, look for him to win his first race since his return to the Scuderia in 2014. At Indianapolis, I'm going to be bold and pick Fernando Alonso. Why? Why not. He's got the speed, the team, and the talent. Don't be surprised if the two-time F1 World Champion is drinking the milk on Sunday afternoon. Finally, in Charlotte, I'm picking Kyle Busch. Joe Gibbs Racing is on a high after winning the All-Star Race, which Busch himself won. Look for him to pull off the Charlotte double.

Finally, look for much more frequent blog posts in the weeks to come. I've been quite busy with schoolwork this past month, but now I'm three exams away from finishing high school, so I'll have much more time on my hands for working on this blog.

Notes while I was gone

McLaren's latest Indy entry...until this year (Photo: McLaren)

It's been a while. I've been busy with schoolwork, other real life chores, and another blog for a trip to Mexico. A lot has happened since my last post, so I'll cover the highlights one by one.

Fernando Alonso is running the Indy 500. Sorry Nico Rosberg, your absence on the grid is no longer the biggest shocker of the season. Ironically, Alonso will be driving another McLaren-Honda. The team will get support from IndyCar powerhouse Andretti Autosport, however, so expect them to be competitive. If Manor F1 refugee Alexander Rossi can win the race as a rookie, who's to say a double world champion can't do the same?

On that note, Jenna Fryer owes Alonso a major apology for this column, entitled, "So What that Alonso is Racing in the Indy 500?" Well, Jenna, maybe it's because the F1 season for McLaren is lost, so what do they have to lose? Also, the reason he hasn't scored any points with McLaren this season has been because, well, to put it lightly, his car is terrible. Seriously, Alonso hasn't even finished a race yet! And do you really think Tony Stewart or Danica Patrick would have provided more buzz? Maybe in the States alone, sure, but now the whole world will be watching to see what Alonso to do. I have to give you props, though. When you make Mario Andretti livid, you've accomplished something.

Sauber look to be headed to Honda engines in 2018. That's cool for Honda, I guess, but I'm not so sure about Sauber. I'm sure there's some behind-the-scenes financial reasoning that makes this deal make sense, but McLaren have been so dreadful this year that their $40 million driver has decided to skip their biggest race of the year to go run, well, another biggest race of the year. I'm not convinced that McLaren chassis is all that great either, but Honda still has a lot of work to do as an engine supplier...

Finally, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is retiring after this season. It honestly makes sense, given his expiring contract, but also his health concerns the past few seasons. Personally, my early pick for his replacement is Alex Bowman, but I've been wrong before, so we'll see what Hendrick does.

Opinion: We Have a Title Fight on our Hands

The finger is back. (Photo: CNN)

I finally have some time to myself, so I'll go ahead and put in another post.

I live on the east coast of the United States, so the Australian Grand Prix went lights out at 1 AM my time. But come on, this was the first Formula One race in nearly four months. There was no way I was going to sleep through this one.

I went to bed around 8:00 and set an alarm for midnight, giving me a chance to watch F1 Countdown on NBCSN. Leigh Diffey, David Hobbs and Steve Matchett are better than ever. No wonder Sports Illustrated listed them among the honorable mentions for best broadcast team in 2015.

The race itself started off interesting enough, with Daniel Ricciardo's car getting stuck in sixth gear before the start. He would eventually recover to start the race two laps down, only to retire with similar issues after 25 laps.

But the story of the day was Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari, who used pit strategy to their advantage to take the victory in the opening grand prix of the season. The Mercedes men of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas finished second and third respectively. Vettel, however, proved that this season may not be a walk in the park for Mercedes like they've been used to the past three years. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he was voted Driver of the Day in a landslide.

(And yes, I went back to bed after F1 Extra and slept in until 8:00am. I actually got a full eight hours of sleep.)

I still want to be cautious with the belief that we could see a legitimate battle for the championship this season. (Keep in mind, Ferrari and Vettel have won early season races before.) But Vettel's pace matched Hamilton's when it mattered most, and a brilliant strategy by Ferrari won them one of the most thrilling races we've seen in a long time. Personally, I cannot wait for China!

Also, in other news, McLaren's Fernando Alonso has just announced his immediate retire...alright, you get the joke. Happy April 1st.

Australian Grand Prix Preview: Wehrlein out, Giovinazzi in

Photo: Formula1.com

Sauber F1 Team have made a driver change before tomorrow's (tonight's? depends where you are in the world...) Australian Grand Prix.

Pascal Wehrlein, still recovering from his accident at the Miami Race of Champions, will be replaced by Ferrari reserve driver Antonio Giovinazzi for the race. Wehrlein received medical clearance to drive this weekend but insists his fitness is still not where it needs to be (again, further proof drivers are athletes). As of today, he plans to be back in the car for China in two weeks.

Giovinazzi will one of two drivers making his Formula One début in Australia (Williams' Lance Stroll is the other). He finished second in the GP2 Championship last season to Frenchman and Red Bull development driver Pierre Gasly, whose hopes of earning an F1 ride this year ended when Toro Rosso re-signed both Daniil Kyvat and Carlos Sainz Jr.

Lewis Hamilton will start on pole alongside Sebastian Vettel. Hamilton's new teammate, Valtteri Bottas, starts third.

Also, as an American, I must give a shoutout to Haas F1 Team. Romain Grosjean starts sixth tomorrow, which is where he finished for Haas at Australia last season.