The 10th season of Formula E had a troubled start due to a fire in the WAE garage, the new designation of Williams Advanced Engineering, the company that holds the exclusive supply of batteries for the electric cars that compete in the World Championship.
The problem at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Valencia, Spain occurred shortly after the end of the first session of collective pre-season tests, requiring the immediate evacuation of the sports facility and suspending all planned activities. However, emergency teams acted quickly and controlled a fire that caused only material damage.
The incident is under investigation, and the probable cause of the fire is already known. If there are no further problems, the return to action is scheduled for tomorrow, after the completion of cleaning and inspection works in the affected area, which is adjacent to the team’s boxes. Therefore, until now, only one training session of three hours has been held, which ended with Mitch Evans at the top of the time list, ahead of António Félix da Costa.
The New Zealand driver, in the Jaguar I-Type 6, covered the 3.376 km of Ricardo Tormo in 1.24.474 m, defeating the Portuguese driver in the Porsche 99X Electric by 0.143 s.
Originally, during today, Formula E planned to carry out two race simulations, both with pit stops for ultra-fast battery charging, a system that will debut in the World Championship in this 10th season, after the initial idea of introducing it in the 9th season was abandoned to further work on the development of technology, especially in the fields of reliability and safety.
The program, if work can resume at Ricardo Tormo, must be fulfilled tomorrow. The Formula E World Championship is scheduled to begin on January 13, 2024, at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City.
