Bern Formula E shakedown delayed as track work not finished

The shakedown session in Bern was due to be run at 15:00 local time in the de facto capital of Switzerland on Friday, but was delayed initially to 17:45.

Autosport understands that walls and associated fences are still being installed at several places around the 1.7-mile track.

FE and the FIA opted to delay the session to give the teams and drivers the chance to sample the new track under normal shakedown conditions, which meant running in a lower 110kW mode as opposed to the standard 200kW race power level.

There had been suggestions shakedown could take place at 15:00 as expected, but in such a scenario the cars would have had to follow the safety car as no session can take place as usual until a track is finished for safety reasons.

The organisers therefore decided to provide more time to its track building team by delaying shakedown.

UPDATE

Despite the lengthy delay, the work to complete the Bern track could not be completed in time for the 15-minute shakedown to run under normal conditions at 110kW.

Instead, after a further 10-minute delay past the 17:45 rescheduled start time, the drivers followed the safety car as a pack for six laps before returning to pitlane.

FP1 will begin at 08:55 on Saturday morning, with the race not scheduled to start until 18:00 - 85 minutes later than is typical for a Formula E race.

Drivers compare track to "Oulton Park, Macau and Pau"

The Bern track features steep descents and corresponding ascents for almost its entire length, with sections that are extremely narrow, along with several tight corners.

The indoor paddock is also nearly 1km from the track's pitlane, which means the cars will have to leave their garages at 17:25 to be in place for the start of shakedown at 17:45.

The team equipment in the pitlane is being housed in smaller satellite tents compared to the usual set-ups.

Audi driver Lucas di Grassi described the track as "old-fashioned" and "akin to Oulton Park and Macau and Pau".

"Tracks that are really driver-dependent and [where] you need to have a very good car," he continued to Autosport.

"You have no margin for mistakes and you have to nail it.

"If you combine that [with] rain it is going to be chaos because Formula E is super hard to drive in the wet.

"With 250k/w it looks super quick. I'm really looking forward to drive here because I think it will be exciting driving. The race will be not so many places to overtake.

"At the bottom of the hill it will be something like 230km/h which is quite quick. When you turn down that hill section [in an FE car] it would feel like 400km/h at Le Mans.

"The braking is a lot of lateral force, but no run-off. One small mistake and the car oversteers a bit and you hit the wall."

When asked for his thoughts on how the layout of the track could impact on overtaking, HWA driver Gary Paffett told Autosport that: "It's going to be a challenge because it's tight and because the straight lines aren't that straight.

"There's a lot of curves in there and off-line, there's certain bits you want to avoid because there's a big lump and you want to go to one side of it.

"Overtaking will be tough, but possible. Defending will be relatively easy here. It's Formula E so we'll find a way to get past in the end, but it won't be easy."