How London is getting its own Eau Rouge

Sharply rising, quickly bending, thrilling - a slight mistake almost guaranteed to end in disaster. That's what makes Spa's Eau Rouge world-famous.

Now, though, on a smaller but no less grand scale, a new track in the British capital has its own version.

The ExCeL London building may not have the dense, imposing nature vibe of Spa's Ardennes woodland, but its sheer size and site in the heart of London's historic Docklands give it its own sense of grandeur and intrigue.

It's here that ABB FIA Formula E will race in just under one year's time as the electric championship makes its much anticipated return to the UK.

The action will take place on a 1.5-mile indoor/outdoor track, with the indoor section housed in the ExCeL's vast south hall. The rest of the track runs around the site's perimeter roads, using two steep access ramps to connect the circuit's upper and lower levels.

"If we're going over it, almost jumping and then braking, it's going to be unbelievable" Sam Bird

It's the second of these ramps, approaching the track's final turns, that has been compared to Eau Rouge. It's a short climb, but very steep - and crucial to get right because immediately afterwards comes a right-hander that will take the cars back indoors to complete the lap.

The cars might not be going quite as quickly as they do at the crest of the long run uphill in Rome, where the FE grid regularly got airborne during visits to the city in the past two seasons, but they might be even more spectacular. They'll certainly be traversing the gradient at a significant rate of knots above the top speed of the lorries and forklifts the road was designed to serve.

"It depends whether it's going to be flat-out over it and brake, or whether we're going to be braking uphill," says Envision Virgin Racing driver Sam Bird.

"If we're going over it, almost jumping and then braking, it's going to be unbelievable. If we're braking up it, it makes it a little bit easier.

"But the transition phase from going uphill to flat means there might be quite a bit of understeer there as we turn in towards the apex. So, you might have to anticipate your turn-in.

"That's the Eau Rouge of Formula E so far - that's really, really steep. Especially in such a small area, the gradient there is very high.

"I'm quite excited to give that a go. We haven't experienced anything like that yet in Formula E."

The rest of the track begins - after the opening sequence of indoor corners - with a charge down the first access ramp into a tight, covered chicane beneath the ExCeL's main entrance. In a not-so-glamorous twist, this is, for most of the year, a bin store.

From there, the cars will gather pace as they hurtle out onto a long straight on the approach to a still-yet-to-be-fully-defined series of hairpin switchbacks, which will likely be the main overtaking spots in next year's 2019/20 double-header season-finale races.

The track then heads around the eastern areas of the ExCeL perimeter - via a car park that will house a multi-apex sequence not unlike the opening corners in New York - before making that sharp, covered climb back indoors.

And it's here, inside the cavern-esque south hall, that things are set to get experimental.

ExCeL actually has a motor racing heritage. In 2006, BBC TV show Top Gear filmed a segment with the 2005 TF105 Toyota Formula 1 car, which was supposed to race through the length of the building. But it could not lay down its power on the ExCeL's painted stretched-concrete surface, spinning its wheels and potential top speed away.

To counter this, FE and ExCeL's management are working to produce a special surface that will give the cars all the grip they need to run as usual, while also not adding the inevitable height to the hall floor that a layer of asphalt would create.

"We wanted a system that was a) sustainable and that we weren't going to have lots of labour every year to try to manage," says FE senior event manager Oli McCrudden.

"And b) that doesn't affect the operations of ExCeL because they've got shows and exhibitions pushing trolleys and things across that [floor]. So we couldn't have a big road in the middle of it.

"We did some tests with a couple of suppliers to work out how we can remove a very small layer of the concrete from the top and then we put down a paint that chemically bonds into the concrete.

"It will be a cross between a boxing match and a Top Gear Live sort of thing" Formula E's Oli McCrudden

"We then put in some emery sand, which creates a friction surface, and then that has a safe coating over the top. It's 2mm of thickness and we can put that down over the course of about 10 weeks prior to the build [of the July 2020 race].

"It gives us the slip ratio values that we need for the friction co-efficient so that the cars are in a good place."

So that's the bits fans won't see taken care of, but FE sounds as if it's preparing something different for the bits they will.

As the ExCeL is equipped to host major events - it held the boxing, wrestling, judo, taekwondo, weight-lifting, table tennis and fencing events of London's 2012 Olympic Games - the championship is evaluating ways to make use of those capabilities to enhance its live offering during the race weekend.

Considering every FE season has at least made it as far as the last venue (if not always the last actual race) with the title fight still alive, it could be quite a show.

"It will be a cross between a boxing match and a Top Gear Live sort of thing," explains McCrudden. "With the grid happening inside, and if we go down to the wire again for the championship, we could really do something special.

"You can bring the house lights down, you can start to do laser-mapping and projection on the walls and really create a show for those 15,000 people that are going to be sitting in there to watch the race as well."

It is expected that the majority of the fans attending the race will sit in the indoor area, which will take in the start/finish line, and the pits and paddock. There will also be some grandstands situated outdoors, probably at the hairpin switchbacks, which have been inspired by the final corners of the Park O'Higgins track FE used for the first time in Santiago this year.

FE will have exclusive use of the ExCeL building during the event, with the races due to take place on the weekend of 25-26 July 2020. That means as well as occupying the south hall for the track and paddock, the ExCeL's north hall will be filled with FE's e-village fanzone.

For the teams, the indoor setting will at least offer consistent conditions - and shelter from the famously fickle British weather.

But that was not always guaranteed in the plan, as FE did initially look at installing the pitlane outside the ExCeL, along the quayside of the Royal Victoria Dock.

"From a team point of view on the operations side, garage-wise, it's even a little bit better [than normal] because you're not open to the elements," reckons Jaguar team principal James Barclay, who says London's return to the FE calendar fills "a void" for the manufacturers looking to advertise their electric technology in a major market.

"Where we have heavy rain sometimes the garages can be quite hostile environments - if it's very warm, etc. So from that point of view the [indoor] garage environment works quite well!

"I don't think we'll be limited for space to much inside as well - we won't have a lamppost in the garage [as is the case in Paris], which is part of the challenge of Formula E, having to adapt to the environment. But I think here operationally it will very accommodating.

"The biggest thing from a team point of view is understanding the final circuit design and layout. We know the layout now, but design means looking at the surfaces, what that's going to be like around here. You've got everything from car park areas to ramps, and what indoors will be like in terms of the surface will be fascinating to see."

Nissan e.dams driver Oliver Rowland reckons the 'Eau Rouge' ramp is "going to be a bit of a jump".

"And it's extremely tight, so they're going to have to do a good job of making sure there's space for us," he continues. "But it's going to be like any Formula E race - tight, exciting, cool. All those sort of things into one."

Making extra space for the cars is exactly what the ExCeL is planning to do. As well as putting down the indoor track surface, the building's owner is conducting a programme of civil works to make sure the cars can traverse the course without getting damaged - and the bins will need moving from the first sector too.

The main work will be focused on levelling the gradient of the ramps - "so the cars have not got too much bounce," says ExCeL's head of attractions and live events, Damian Norman - to ease the road where it levels off, resurfacing some of the long back straight, reprofiling an existing car park near the site's Aloft hotel to ensure the track stays within the ExCeL's boundaries, and widening the lorry-access door that will take the track back to the start/finish area.

"But none of it is problematic and we've got a schedule of works through the next 12 months," says Norman. "We haven't had to move any events to accommodate [the races], nor will any events be disrupted with the civil works and everything.

"At Christmas time, we're very quiet, so there will be a lot of civil works going on here [then]. But the civil works are not extensive, it's not like we need to take down walls and widen lorryways and things. It's actually quite straightforward."

ExCeL sees hosting an FE race as something to highlight the wide variety of events it can put on. With a £5.8billion investment programme plan set to be implemented in the surrounding areas, the up-and-coming status of the Docklands is showing no sign of easing off.

"The reason that I've joined ExCeL," says Norman, "is to look at the ExCeL campus beyond selling space for shows in halls.

"So Formula E sits bang in that channel and beyond that there's a number of different conversations about how we use the estate beyond the traditional means. Formula E is a great launchpad, but there's a lot more to come from us."

For FE, as well as providing the championship with a new location in its home city - something it's been missing since it was forced from Battersea Park - the ExCeL is perfect for very practical reasons.

Where Wandsworth Council-operated Battersea Park led to complaints from local residents irked by the disruption and attention brought by a major sporting event, the ExCeL is built for exactly that situation.

As the reprofiling of the site will mean that none of the track be on public roads - Sandstone Lane, the back straight, is a private road - there is no danger of disruption to the lives of local people. It's a model more and more FE events are taking - visiting little-used areas of cities or adapting existing facilities to put on a race.

"We scoured about 14 different locations across London when we were trying to find an alternative, and this was a design that we put together actually in season two, before we left Battersea for the last time," explains McCrudden.

"As part of these 14 potential venues, we studied everything from RAF Northolt to Crystal Palace - we thought about maybe trying to revive that - up to Ally Pally and various other places and other parks. But every time we came back to the benefits of coming here.

"It's a single land-owner. So, we're dealing with ExCeL - they have the longer-term lease from GLA [Greater London Authority] - we're very tight with GLA and we've worked with them for years. So it just makes life easier.

"The impact on the day-to-day running of a park is completely different from the impact on the day-to-day running of a venue that is used to, and lives and breathes, events.

"Even for us bringing in infrastructure. When we pop up a circuit we have to put everything down. We have to calculate toilets, gates, fences, power, wifi, cash machines. Everything is in place here - it's a no-brainer. It really is just a simple way of doing it."

The ExCeL is FE's new home in the UK - just across the city from its actual home in a Hammersmith towerblock.

Given its location in a global metropolis, as well as a major motorsport market in the UK, the race is bound to be popular. The track has clearly been designed with a mix of motorsport fans in mind, but it also serves to demonstrate the changing nature of FE in recent years.

Where before it enraged the residents of its last London home, and in its original location in Santiago, now the series is adapting how it fits into cities to serve both parties.

To build interest and inspiration, FE needs to keep coming back to the same places. That will hopefully increase its fanbase, but also demonstrate the advancing electric technology at the championship's core.

In the self-contained and self-functioning ExCeL, with another iconic skyline neatly in the background for the end-of-season photos, it may just have found a perfect London home.