@MichaelN Thanks for reading it through!

Thanks for that overview, it was inevitable that opening up the cars' development would lead to differences that would make the races more predictable, but it seems there hasn't yet been a runaway team.

Other than the silly sound, the goofy tracks have been the main reason I have no interest in FE. It's good to read that they're slowly expanding the range and types of tracks, even if they'll probably always be city-focused, as that's where BEVs are best used.

I think that you're right about the races being available 7 days later on the FE site. To be fair, I've rarely felt a burning need to watch the races live - given how regularly previous broadcasters would hide, or even ignore, the coverage away, I don't know which is cause and which is effect.

If they had a decent driver tracker and timing screen to go along with their team radio broadcasts and could synch that all up with the delayed broadcast, I think they could have a great product on their hands. Hell, I might even pay a few quid to have access to something like that live too, but I absolutely can't see myself taking out a TNT subscription no matter what.

Either way, I hope to enjoy another season of FE commencing from 20 January.

Initially it started as race-for-fun series, basically providing shelter for ex-F1 drivers elbowed out of the pinnacle of motorsports. Many of them were able to show how harshly they were treated and they are capable of shine in equal machinery, as season 1 went not only with spec chassis, but spec power train and gearbox, the hardware side of the cars were equal, the importance of the drivers proved to be extremely important.

As seasons went by and different technical solutions were allowed and welcome, this gained the attention of heavy weight car manufacturers, which in turn attracted exciting young talents or champions of certain regional series on the driver's side. While the drivers considered the series at some pastime activity in the beginning, behind their main series like WEC or DTM, the trend reversed at some point, but racing in multiple series and the comradery between drivers reminded a lot what F1 looked like in the 60s. At some point the series was referred to as the Bundesliga as Mercedes, BMW, Porsche and Audi fielded their own teams and supplied many of the remaining teams. All these factors and actors improved a lot on the professionalism of the series, races had became less random.

On the technical side, Gen1 cars looked like late-90s F1 machines, two of them were needed to complete a not exactly long race distance, but brought forward car preserving skills and strategies being able to go one-two laps longer in the first car, allowing them to push a bit more in the second car. Their speed might have been unspectacular, but racing them on relatively narrow street tracks between unforgiving walls provided quality wheel-to-wheel racing.

Gen2 proved to be a giant leap in terms of technology and quality of racing, and the Batmobile-like cars proved themselves. Attack Mode appeared, which was jokingly referred to as "Mario Kart" by the drivers themselves, and it served as a streamlined version of a pitstop for fresher tyres which cost you trackposition, but you can make up the places with the plus performance of the tyres, or in this case extra horsepowers for a limited amount of time. Similar concept as rolling forward a few rows on the dummy grid instead on completing a whole formation lap.

Gen3 is our current spec car, which is smaller, lighter and drastically faster and more efficient than any electric racing car before. However, manufacturers leaving the series claimed that this technology level still bottlenecks their own development rate of electric solutions. Every generations meant to last for 4 seasons, and after 2 seasons a b-spec is being introduced as planned, Gen2 was an exception due to the covid-situation. Technical and sporting regulations are proactively planned, there's a clean concept about it, they simply don't wait until the formula becomes overused.

In Season 9 the track selection was broadened, but keeping the concept of high speed lanes ending with heavy braking zones into a hairpin with multiple lines to take it and support overtaking efforts. Different tracks came into play, like the relatively superwide Portland circuit, which provided an absolutely unusual kind of racing. The main issue these days is the relatively huge difference between the power train solutions, where Jaguar and Porsche-driven teams excel, but the rest are lagging far behind and has the only option to improve their software solutions to close that gap. That still makes racing really intense and interesting, albeit not every team can compete currently for wins or podiums. This is in my opinion that FE has to address.

As a Old man the racing is different but has it charm that said it could improve a lot. While watching new technologies i think the engine will be stronger and more lasting which the car increases in size and we will see them on more real tracks. At the moment i find some circuits (FE) too narrow that must be improved first also RC must be hard on causing a collisions that happens too much. Wheel banging np the rest not so.

However, the pay-TV element this season is extremely disappointing. However, given FE have now been shown on all 4 UK Public Service Broadcasters, and lasted no more than 3 years on any of them, I don't think FE had any other option except perhaps livestream the races on YouTube, which I'm sure would be popular, but would probably bring less TV exposure and revenue than the TNT Sports deal.

Additionally, my understanding is all the races of the upcoming season will be uploaded free to the FE website 7 days after the race, so I suppose that isn't too bad compared to some other sports.

I don't watch it at all, so my trick is saving me £120.

The racing just doesn't do it for me.

Daruvala (MASERATI) > Mortara (MAHINDRA) > Di Grassi (ABT) > Frijns (ENVISION) > Cassidy (JAGUAR) > Bird (MCLAREN) > Rast [out]

The other two are rather simple:

De Vries (MAHINDRA) > Merhi [out]

Rowland (NISSAN) > Nato (Andretti) > Lotterer [out]