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The Shanghai E-Prix is special for many reasons. Not only is it Formula E’s first visit back to China since Sanya in Season 5, but it’s also the country where we made our debut back in Beijing. China is a huge market for electric vehicles, and is represented on the grid by the ERT Formula E team.
Ahead of their home race, Team Principal Alex Hui, spoke about the importance of racing in Shanghai and how the team are preparing for the weekend on this brand new circuit.
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“Technically, it doesn't really change much for our preparation,” Hui said, when asked how the team would be preparing to race in front of their home crowds. “The main difference for myself is that we have much more support from the cities, from our friends, and from our partners. I arrived [in Shanghai] a lot earlier this week, and I've done quite a lot of connecting with partners, press and with some students on Tuesday as well.
“For the engineers and for the drivers, the job is very similar. I think the difference is we have much more engagement. It's my fifth season personally in Formula E, and the first year was when the coronavirus pandemic started and I was hoping for a home race in China that was Sanya and Hong Kong but they didn't happen.”
Visiting the Shanghai International Circuit for the first time, most teams and drivers are expecting a race that is guided by intense energy management. The 3.051km layout consists of 12 corners and one very long and wide start/finish straight. It has seen several comparisons to Rounds 6 and 7 in Misano, but Hui isn’t completely convinced.
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“Formula E is very unpredictable; that's part of the DNA and I think anything can be possible. There is something similar between this track and Misano, it is quite wide open, but this track has also got quite a lot of high speed corners which might not make overtaking as easy. I think it won't be the same as Misano, but you know everyone is trying to make these predictions. Honestly for me, I think it's very difficult to expect but we will try our best to do a good job here.”
ETR driver Dan Ticktum looked solid in the first free practice, finishing in seventh. The Brit has experience testing here in his Red Bull junior days, joking that he’d completed close to a “quarter billion laps” and that he knew most of the track very well.
“To be honest, compared to the other [ERT] car, I've struggled quite a lot this season and that is because we've had some pretty key differences that we decided at the start of the season,” Ticktum said about his car versus his teammate Sergio Sette Camara ahead of the inaugural Shanghai race weekend.
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“I sort of decided to go down one route, and he went down the other, and it's worked better for him. That's obviously what my grid penalty was for in Berlin and we have made some big changes. Even on the Sunday, I did notice some improvement. I think especially for these sorts of tracks, more conventional circuits like faster entries and stuff, the changes we've made will help and hopefully I'll get some of that pace back.
“It's a home race. So that's always nice. Like everyone has said so far, it's a market that we need to be tapping into more and more. I hope that we have more races here in the future.”
SCHEDULE: Where, when and how to watch or stream the 2024 Shanghai E-Prix Rounds 11 & 12
Track action for the first day of the double-header starts on Saturday 25 May with Free Practice 2 at 08:00 local. Qualifying follows at 10:20 local time with lights out for Round 11 scheduled at 15:00 local.
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Following this, Sunday’s action starts with Free Practice 3 at 08:00, followed by Round 12 qualifying and the race at 10:20 and 15:00 local time respectively.
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