Seventh and eighth E-Prix of Season 8, as always in the area of the old Tempelhof airport, but on Saturday it turns counter-clockwise, Sunday the other way around. In the lead is Vandoorne, on a Mercedes racing at home for the last time
The batteries are nice charged. And it is assumed not only that, also all the drivers and teams are ready to return to the track just two weeks after the E-prix in Monte Carlo. Finally, with a frequency that puts the drivers at ease, hitherto recalled at the wheel even two months after the previous race, with obvious difficulties, especially for those who are less familiar with the category. On the other hand, the weekend in Berlin will be very hard: not so much because there are two races there. The doubleheader is a rather common format in Formula E, this year there have already been two, the one that inaugurated the season, in Ad-Diriyah, in Arabia, and then ours in Rome on 9 and 10 April. The problem is that on Saturday and Sunday we will run on the same track as in Berlin, but on the first day it will be covered in an anti-clockwise direction, the next day in a clockwise direction. That is, teams and drivers will have to prepare two completely different tracks and, it is assumed, two equally dissimilar races.
Concrete bottom
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It will therefore be interesting to understand what effects such a drastic and sudden change will have, and who will be able to adapt better to it. You get there with Stoffel Vandoorne and Mercedes at the top of the standings. The Belgian, already in Formula 1 for two seasons with McLaren, has 81 points, six more than Jean-Eric Vergne on DS-Techeetah. With Mitch Evans (Jaguar) third at 72 and Rob Frijns (Envision) fourth at 71. Among the manufacturers, Mercedes leads with 120, DS-Techeetah has 15 less, Jaguar is at 94, Envision at 87, with Venturi and Porsche glued there, respectively at 86 and 85. As mentioned, we run at Tempelhof, the former airport of West Berlin, the only location on the calendar of all 8 Seasons played so far. The track where in 2020, in full emergency calendar due to Covid19, the 6 final E-prix of the championship were disputed (the title went to Antonio Felix Da Costa, on DS Techeetah), moreover on as many different layouts. It is a circuit with a rather singular peculiarity: the surface is made of concrete rather than asphalt.
So far there have been five different winners out of six races, with only Evans scoring a double in Rome. Of course, the new qualifying formula limits the alternation compared to last year, if not in terms of winners, certainly in relation to the core of the best. For Mercedes it will be the last time at home, given that at the end of Season 8 he will leave the category. It’s easy to imagine that he wants to say hello in style.
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