01 Mar Back To The Future: Marshalling The Power

Museums are defined as “a building or institution where objects of artistic, historical, or scientific importance and value are kept, studied, and put on display”. FMM is no exception, but also keeps up with the times. This month, JP describes FMM’s involvement in the South African Formula E Prix…

The weekend of 25 February saw the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship visit the City of Cape Town in the latest round of the E-Prix calendar, making it the first sub-Saharan African city to host the event. The 2,921 km street circuit took twelve turns to flash through Green Point and Mouille Point, with the DHL Stadium and Table Mountain towering above it. Considered to be one of the fastest tracks on the Season 9 Formula E calendar, the start/finish line at Vlei Road sent the drivers towards a tight Turn 1 into Helen Suzman Boulevard, where a good few had to make use of the run-off area to avoid having a collision. After a compound, high-speed sweep into Granger Bay Boulevard, two tight chicanes ensured the drivers were kept alert, before taking another ninety degree turn towards Mouille Point. From here, high speeds were reached through Turns 8 and 9, where a few major accidents occurred during Free Practice and Qualifying, making life difficult for the mechanics of Sebastian Buemi , and ultimately ending Sam Bird and Edoardo Mortara’s weekend. (In the main race, the latter retired on lap 1 due to a technical problem.) On lap 1 of the main race, championship leader Pascal Wehrlein out-braked himself into Turn 10, collecting Sebastian Buemi on the way into the run-off area. Buemi was able to continue this time, though, eventually finishing fifth.

So the marshals were kept busy all weekend, either attending to the accidents, debris on the track or reacting to Race Control commands for flag, board and light panel signals. Which brings us to FMM’s involvement with the event… With the Cape Town E-Prix and Kyalami 9-Hour events being held on the same weekend, extra marshals were needed. The Western Province Motor Club reached out to FMM for assistance with the E-Prix after Workshop Manager, Lorenzo Farella, liaised with the organisers about the possibility of assisting late last year. The FMM workshop team attend MSA Marshal Training yearly and this was a great opportunity to make use of the theory learnt and apply it practically at an international, timed event.

The organisers then communicated the marshalling requirements and additional training to be done specific to Formula E. Training was done online on the FIA website and presented by FIA representatives at the circuit from Thursday 23 February, with updates on specific requirements throughout the race weekend. All the marshals were divided into teams with specific tasks and posts, including flag, intervention, start-line and pit marshalling – each having a post chief. All the marshals went through simulation training at the circuit, where a demo Formula E car was used to replicate stoppages or accidents. During these simulations, the marshal would radio Race Control what they saw and Race Control would then give instruction – which flag(s), safety car board, full course yellow board, light panel and whether to wait for the medical team, e-safety delegate or to deploy the telescopic handler to the scene, etc. This was good preparation for such a high speed, tight circuit.

During the main race, Lorenzo and JP assisted with start-line procedures and hurried down to Turn 12 for the Lap 1 incident full course yellow and safety car signals. Wenstley had his hands full at Turn 1, with drivers missing their marks and having to re-enter the track from the run-off area, while Donnie had the ‘pole position’ at the start-line. The race was action packed, with positions changing throughout due to mistakes, accidents and Attack Mode, where the cars go off the racing line over the Activation Zone to add an extra 50kW. With Turn 9 seeing most of the accidents, it was even more impressive that race winner Antonio Felix Da Costa dared sending it past Jean–Éric Vergne through Turns 8 and 9 on the second last lap (first of the two added laps) to seal the victory.

We’d like to thank the organisers, the FIA, the WPMC and our fellow marshals for the positive experience we had during this inaugural Cape Town Formula E event. Also, big thanks to Lorenzo Farella for the initiative and to FMM Curator, Wayne Harley, for allowing us to contribute to this event.