Formula E finalises calendar including London double header
Formula E and the FIA have finally signed off the remainder of the 2021 season calendar, which features a long-awaited return to London plus the addition of Puebla in Mexico.
Start: Stéphane Sarrazin, Venturi leads
FIA Formula E
The schedule for the seventh season fulfils chief championship officer Alberto Longo’s ambition to host a record-breaking 15 races thanks to this latest addition of four double-header events.
The lesser-known Puebla track, formerly a host to World Touring Cars, will make its debut across 19-20 June while the usual Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez venue remains in use as a COVID hospital.
A visit to the Red Hook area of New York follows across 10-11 July, while London finally returns to the Formula E calendar this season on 24-25 July at the ExCeL Centre in the London Docklands.
A multi-year deal to race at the venue was first announced in March 2019, with the ExCeL meant to feature last season prior to the disruption caused by the pandemic.
It was then included on the provisional 2021 calendar issued by the FIA last June, which was then retracted in favour of announcing dates in small batches amid a growing list of postponements.
The ExCeL Centre, repurposed into the Nightingale Hospital during the waves of COVID-19, is set to use a circuit configuration that will feature 20 corners over 1.5 miles and include an indoor section.
It will mark Formula E’s return to London, with Battersea Park playing host to the season finale double-headers in 2015 and 2016 until complaints from residents chiefly forced it off the calendar.
The grid lines up for the start of the Berlin ePrix
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
The 2021 season will then conclude with two races at the Tempelhof Airport site in Berlin, which hosted the six-race conclusion to the 2019-20 campaign after it was paused for five months.
Longo said: “It’s a massive achievement by all to release the full calendar for this season.
“The calendar includes the most races we’ve held in one season and shows our continued commitment to create a momentum-building schedule that fans and audiences across the world will follow.
“Four double-header events in Puebla, New York City, London and Berlin are going to set the scene perfectly to crown Formula E’s first official FIA World Champion.”
This final calendar update now confirms the cancellation of the Marrakech E-Prix on 22 May, as reported by Autosport last month, which comes after the Rome and Valencia events were boosted to become double-headers ahead of the one-shot Monaco race on the full grand prix circuit on 8 May.
In addition, the 5-6 June visit to Santiago has also fallen off the calendar, with Chile remaining on the UK government ‘red list’ travel ban meaning returning team and championship crew would have needed to quarantine in a government-approved hotel for 10 days upon their return.
Formula E has also pledged to reorganise a Seoul E-Prix, a maiden event in South Korea for the following 2021-22 season – the last year of the Gen2 car.
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