What we learned from the Formula E opener

The opening round of the second Formula E season had a bit of everything. There was anticipation aplenty, talk of history being made, and intrigue over the fate of one of the teams.

All the chatter beforehand was about who would be quick, who would be reliable, who would be efficient and who would struggle. The gap between the best and the worst could not have been starker, with the remaining teams occupying different spots in the chasm between.

From only 18 cars taking the start to the defending champion qualifying last, the Beijing ePrix generated plenty of talking points.

But let's get the obvious out of the way first...

HOW BIG IS RENAULT'S ADVANTAGE?

A two-second pace advantage in the 30-minute test on Friday led Renault e.dams co-founder Alain Prost to declare something wrong.

"We have to be careful," he said. "There's no reason why we should have this kind of gap."

He was right. Sebastien Buemi was only a second quicker than the next non-Renault Z.E.15 when it counted. Only a second. That's more than usually covered the top 10 in season one.

Prost joked on Saturday morning that "yesterday was maybe too much!", but there was a serious word of caution too.

"It's never good to show too much at the beginning," he added. "What we showed yesterday was not correct in a way."

That's because Renault e.dams is now the clear favourite, and a target has been slapped on its back.

Buemi was half a second clear in the first part of qualifying, before lapping more than a second quicker than the next-best driver from another team, Mahindra's Nick Heidfeld, in the superpole session.

In the race Buemi was able to pull at away by two seconds a lap at times and had no energy-management issues.

He also set a fastest lap of the race on the final tour that was almost a second quicker than anyone else.

The longest lap of the season delivers a big test early on and the Renault passed with flying colours. But that lap length also gives hope the gap will shrink at other circuits.

THE RACING'S VERY GOOD BEHIND

While a dominant victor is not the ideal way to launch a new season, it would be churlish to suggest the opening race was dull.

Spectacular efforts from the likes of Jean-Eric Vergne, Loic Duval, Sam Bird and Robin Frijns ensured there was plenty of entertaining driving through the field, and not over insignificant positions either.

Vergne and Duval went wheel-to-wheel in earnest early on, with a small amount of rubbing that did neither driver harm and only added to the spectacle. That was over sixth.

Then there was the three-way fight for second that, while lacking in any real overtaking early on, was intriguing to watch and did later feature passes from Prost on Heidfeld.

And on the penultimate lap Duval survived an assault from team-mate Jerome d'Ambrosio that put the latter sideways and required awesome car control to prevent the two Dragon cars colliding.

Duval got out of shape himself as he launched an attack on Heidfeld for third on the final lap, but they didn't come to blows.

We found out last season how difficult the cars can be to drive and how entertaining Formula E can be. Based on Beijing, that's not going to be any different in season two.

ELECTRIC TECHNOLOGY HAS MOVED ON QUICKLY

Two of the 10 teams are running last year's powertrains and the stark nature of the challenge they face was rammed home in China.

While it was not expected that Andretti Autosport and Team Aguri would necessarily sneak a win early on, the idea was they would run at the front while the others got to grips with new technology.

Unfortunately for both teams nobody - Trulli aside, and we'll come to that - suffered any mechanical problems of note. Worse still, almost all of them were quicker than the Spark SRT_01E.

Andretti and Aguri drivers occupied four of the last six spots on the grid, and the cars were more than two seconds off the ultimate pace.

The significance of the deficit was noticeable from Frijns' bleak assessment of the opening race, in which his brilliant battling drive was only rewarded with something after a post-race penalty for Daniel Abt gave him a point for 10th.

"This was probably one of our best races as everyone is developing their own package and we have stuck with the old package," said Frijns.

"That's worrying me. We will see what is happening during the year and how much we're off in the next race."

PIQUET'S TITLE DEFENCE WILL BE TOUGH

Nelson Piquet Jr deserved to leave China with some points. The car didn't, but the inaugural Formula E champion did.

Like team-mate Oliver Turvey ahead of him, Piquet went into energy-conservation mode very early in the race, and they vaulted up the order from 15th and 17th to what would have ultimately ended up as sixth and (at least) ninth. But Piquet stopped on track, and that ruined his race. It was a brief stoppage, but cost him any consolation after a difficult weekend.

It was not a happy home encounter for the NEXTEV TCR team. Its twin-motor powertrain is heavy and that hurt it in Beijing, seemingly much more than it did the DS Virgin Racing team. The car was slow and, before the race, unreliable.

Piquet's preparations took a literal hit when he crumpled the front-left against the concrete wall in the pitlane, believed to be the result of a pitlane speed limiter problem.

His title hopes have taken an early symbolic blow, too. It's not just that he's lost 25 points early on to Buemi, Piquet's immediate prospects look less rosy too.

TRULLI'S SEASON WILL BE TOUGHER

With six days of official pre-season testing, a 30-minute Friday test and the first round of the season now completed, Trulli's Motomatica JT-01 has yet to post a timed lap.

Failing to get through scrutineering amid a customs issue was the latest twist in a troubled season-two tale for Jarno Trulli's outfit.

Even if it made the most of the extra time it took to work on the powertrains before freighting them to Beijing independently of the main Formula E cargo, that's a worry.

As Andretti Autosport found during its own difficult pre-season, identifying and curing a fault doesn't mean you're guaranteed smooth sailing.

The Trulli awning was a hive of activity of Thursday evening as the team worked through the night, only to give way to an eerie stillness on Friday morning.

Some questioned whether the powertrains were really stuck at customs or not, but something happened that sapped the morale from the team.

And the FIA awarded Trulli an extension for scrutineering, which it surely wouldn't have done unless it believed the cars were in a position to be presented should the outstanding parts arrive.

Asking whether or not Trulli really had a customs issue is a red herring, though. The main issue is what happens next.

Having hoped for some answers on Trulli in Beijing, instead there are now more questions.

Does being struck from the official entry list constitute Trulli not participating in the event, and, if so, what sanctions does it face? With the powertrains in quarantine in customs, will they be freighted to Malaysia on time? And will the cars run if the powertrains make it to Putrajaya?

Speaking briefly to Salvador Duran on Thursday evening revealed what he called a "blind faith" in the potential of the technology.

But track time is the only thing that will help Trulli unleash what its package has to offer and now the season's started that's very much in short supply.

THERE'S STILL NO SUBSTITUTE FOR GOOD ENERGY MANAGEMENT

As demonstrated by Turvey and Piquet, quality energy saving can overcome ultimate performance deficits in Formula E. Smart driving dug NEXTEV TCR out of a hole in Beijing.

But it's not just a tool for the speedily-challenged. Dragon Racing was, quite literally, an efficient operation last season and proved it again last weekend.

Duval and d'Ambrosio were in the mix for best-of-the-rest honours behind Renault e.dams in practice and while qualifying was slightly disappointing they always looked like being factors in the race.

When they were able to blend energy management - and remember, that accounts for regenerating energy as well as saving it - with strong pace, they became late-race podium contenders. Had the race gone a little differently, Duval would have been third.

Dragon got more out of its Venturi VM200-FE-01 than the parent company managed, but Duval's worry was over a lack of powertrain punch. That is the only customer tie-up on the grid, so in theory there is a working relationship there - although it is understood their data sharing is limited.

"We saw Renault e.dams is far away in terms of performance and Abt is ahead," said Duval. "We are in that next pack of guys.

"There are some positives and negatives, I don't think it's on set-up, we need to work with Venturi to find some speed."

VILLENEUVE'S ENJOYING HIMSELF - AND STARTED WELL

Nobody faced oft-repeated questions more than Jacques Villeneuve last weekend.

"Why Formula E?" was, unsurprisingly, the resounding favourite but the 1997 Formula 1 world champion took it in good spirits. The fervour with which he recalled his time racing on the street tracks of the USA in the mid-1990s was infectious.

Beyond the Formula E appeal of racing on city streets, Villeneuve's excited by the prospect of a "a full season of anything". Working with engineers and the team has got him fired up (that and, you suspect, being back in single-seaters).

How did his first Formula E weekend go? Well enough. He was forced into a battery change after the Friday test, though, and he suffered an issue with energy management in the first half of the race that he put down to a different battery issue causing an errant reading in the car.

He trailed Sarrazin in qualifying, but his best lap in the race was superior. And his energy management was more than fine in the second half of the race, though his efforts were ruined by Antonio Felix da Costa punting him into the wall.

That, thanks to a series of da Costa apologies both publicly and privately, Villeneuve was fine with - but he was upset with Frijns' robust pass.

"Part of it was good, part less good," was Villeneuve's take. "It was more an experience day. There were a lot of things to iron out.

"I learned which drivers race clean and which are stupid and dirty. Frijns was just unnecessary.

"The car can be quick, we know we can be fast as a team - we just need to have a weekend without issues."

FULL-COURSE YELLOWS WORKED

The clean-up operations for the stricken Spark SRT_01Es of Simona de Silvestro and da Costa either side of the pitstops gave us an early chance to see how it would work.

While there were inevitably strategy repercussions when the second fell just as some drivers were making their stops, overall it worked fine.

Some suggested Buemi extended his lead. He may have gone a bit too quick initially, but that is actually very difficult to be certain of, but what we can be sure of is the optical illusion of the FCY.

The drivers stick to the visual gap they see before them. Someone six car lengths behind the driver in front will retain that gap during the caution period.

What that means is the gap in time become artificially expanded, because it takes longer to travel six car lengths at considerably reduced speed than it does at maximum power.

While Buemi and Heidfeld seemed to be maintaining a decent gap, di Grassi complained over the radio the first two were "opening a huge gap on me - that's unbelievable". But really the big loser was Prost, who fell away massively in fourth.

The second FCY was much cleaner, unsurprisingly given they'd have a chance to actually evaluate how it works.

From a safety perspective there was no issue. And really, in terms of application, it was perfectly fine.

From a sporting perspective, maybe the race could have done with the second safety car putting the Abt Audi Sport driver on the tail of runaway leader Buemi.

Ultimately it depends what point neutralising the race is supposed to serve.

It will be interesting to see if officials opt for a physical safety car in the future when a FCY may well suffice, for the betterment of the show.