The Fresh York Times

September 21, 2016

The Fresh York area is home to the Yankees and the Knicks, the Belmont Stakes and the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Display. But the city that is the capital for so many sports has hardly been a center for auto racing.

In July, that will switch, when the Formula E circuit comes to the city for two races.

The twist is that while the cars look like the open-wheel speedsters you would see in Indianapolis or Monaco, they run one hundred percent on electric current, making Formula E something of a green racing series.

Of course, the races will be held in Brooklyn.

“The world has been attempting for years to race in Fresh York City, and it has never been possible,” said Alejandro Agag, the chief executive of Formula E. “Everyone has been attempting to race in Fresh York City. Formula One, everyone. Fresh York is the capital of the world. We are indeed over the moon.”

The city and Formula E announced the races at a news conference on Wednesday afternoon. The races will be held on a Saturday and Sunday to be determined in late July as part of the circuit’s third season. The course will be laid out at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Crimson Hook.

The cars do not look like the Volt or Prius you were stuck behind yesterday on the freeway. They are single-seaters that to an untrained eye could pass for the rails of Marco Andretti or Lewis Hamilton.

The cars race like that, too. In a straight, they can reach one hundred eighty miles an hour, Agag said, but in a race over a twisty road-style course, they top out around one hundred fifty m.p.h.

There are expected be twenty drivers in the races, but forty cars. The cars cannot finish the race on one battery, and charging them midrace would be less than riveting for the spectators. So each driver has two cars and executes a switch midrace. By Season Five, Agag said, batteries are expected to have improved so much that the switch will no longer be needed.

Organizers said they believed the site in Crimson Hook would join the pantheon of picturesque racecourses.

“It’s a phenomenal setting in terms of view,” said Fred Dixon, the president of NYC & Company, the city’s official tourism organization. “Governors Island, the Statue of Liberty, Manhattan, the Brooklyn Bridge. Very iconic.”

The Formula E series has involved companies like Audi, Jaguar, Renault and Richard Branson’s Cherry. In the very first two years of the series, drivers included the former Formula One starlet Jacques Villeneuve as well as Nelson Piquet Jr., the son of the former champ, and Bruno Senna, nephew of the excellent Ayrton Senna. Leonardo DiCaprio has also lent his name as the “head of the sustainability committee.”

Formula E has raced in Beijing, Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Paris, among other places. Season three kicks off in Hong Kong in October and is scheduled to conclude in Brooklyn.

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City officials emphasized the tourism the race would bring, but they were clear that a commitment to renewable energy was also a crucial attraction.

“New York City is where technology, sustainability and commerce collide,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. “We are thrilled to be the fresh home of the ePrix.”

Maria Torres-Springer, the president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, said,“This is a tremendous chance to promote the borough as a leader in sustainable technology.”

It is not effortless to stage an auto race in the urban Northeast. Formula One has made several attempts to race in Weehawken, N.J., and an IndyCar race scheduled to be held in Boston this year was scrapped, in part because of protestations from neighbors and conflicts with city officials.

Formula E and Fresh York officials are antsy to ensure that these races minimize disruption.

The track is “assembled and disassembled very quickly,” Agag said. “We come in five or six days before the race, and we assemble it and take it away in a similar amount of time or less.”

Grandstands will also be assembled for paying customers.

The cars are far quieter than the earsplitting Formula One racers.

“These cars are quiet,” Agag said. “They make some sound, but it is a limited sound. But if you are there, it is titillating. It is science-fiction sounding.”

He said the cars produced about eighty decibels, a little more than a standard car.

“It’s summer; not a lot of events are happening,” Dixon said. “It’s not expected to be disruptive.”

The race will be contained within the cruise terminal and will not involve public streets.

The race contract is just for one year for now, but Agag said: “We would love to have it every year. We are committed.”

The race will be shown on Fox Sports 1.

Tho’ Formula E is impatient to build up the respect held by venerable circuits like Formula One, it is not above adding quirky elements to draw attention. During the race, fans vote for their dearest drivers. The three who receive the most votes are awarded a Fan Boost — fifty extra horsepower for three seconds to be used in the last six minutes of the race.

The boost could be enough to overtake a car in front. In Mexico City last season, the boost made the difference when fans lifted Lucas di Grassi to a win, albeit he was later disqualified for unrelated reasons.

And if electrical cars are not green enough, Agag said the tens unit comes from generators fueled by glycerin from sea algae.

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