How Formula E's pre-season test venue provides confusion and clarity

The Formula E grid heads to Valencia's Circuit Ricardo Tormo for pre-season testing this weekend. The track, minus the controversial chicane, remains unrepresentative to the series' familiar street layouts but could still be a proving ground for multiple reasons

Published Nov 27, 2020, 3:58 PM

A wide entry into Redgate, a brisk downward sweep into the Craner Curves and then a long climb up to McLean's and Coppice. Certainly for the first two fast and flowing sectors, the Donington Park Grand Prix circuit isn't especially representative of the narrow and staccato nature of the barrier-lined street tracks that Formula E frequents.

But the final sector - a very FE-like chicane of The Esses, the tight loop of the Melbourne Hairpin and then the slow Goddards left-hander to complete the lap - are a bit closer in characteristics when the circuit, sitting under the flight path of East Midlands Airport, played host to pre-season testing for the first three years of FE.

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Author Matt Kew

Matt Kew is Autosport’s F1 Editor, a role he has held since March 2022 following stints covering Formula E, Extreme E and the British Touring Car Championship.

Matt joined Autosport in 2018 to work predominantly on the magazine, but his relentless quoting of Alan Partridge meant office colleagues soon thought he would be better-suited to increased field work.

Needless to say, Matt had the last laugh when he won the Motorsport UK Young Journalist of the Year Award in 2019.

His interest in motorsport was sparked by regular trips to watch ASCAR crash around Rockingham’s banked oval.

Matt read politics and philosophy at the University of Sheffield - receiving first-class honours for his dissertation assessing the lack of female participation in top-tier motor racing.

He covered a wide variety of national race and rally meetings for Autosport as a freelancer before joining full-time. His best efforts to argue the merits of historic racing are undone by a questionable taste in music and James Bond actors.