Bernie Ecclestone, whose company bought the commercial rights to the sport for 100 years from Federation Internationale de l?Automobile only in 2001 but who is widely seen as the main architect of motorsport?s elite series over the previous five decades, has called the current FIA presidency under Jean Todt a ?joke?. Ecclestone?s animus is primarily on account of Todt?s green mission. But former Ferrari team manager Todt, whose mandate is to secure the future of the FIA championship, has obdurately held onto a greener vision. With support from the European Commission, FIA has now awarded the commercial rights for an electric car championship to Formula E Holdings, a consortium that includes various European heavyweights like owner of racing teams in the GP2 and GP3 racing series and former European parliament member Alejandro Agag, owner of green racing pioneer Drayson Racing Technologies and former UK science minister Lord Drayson, and the owner of Formulec Eric Barbaroux, who will provide a prototype vehicle for teams to compete in Formula E in 2014.
The buzz built around the inaugural Grand Prix of India held at the Buddh International Circuit last winter brought home for us the booming power of this medium. Todt, Agag and company hope to harness this power to make people believe in the electric car. This project is currently proving difficult, even with lush subsidies doled out across the US and the EU, especially as oil prices have gone soft again and as petrol vehicles? fuel efficiency has shown big spikes. Formula E hopes to spur the R&D framework around the electric vehicle, with some of the many millions of dollars that go into improving the performance of F1 cars by fractions of a second. Already, the Formulec prototype can go from 0 to 100km/h in three seconds and hit a maximum speed of 220km per hour, as compared to a typical F1 car that can accelerate from 0 to 100km/h in 1.7 seconds and speed beyond 300km/h. As with sales, so with racing, the critical part is going to be to get the audience enthused.
