The new touring car series with FE in its sights

Formula E has a new and noisy neighbour: Pure ETCR. In principle, there's really no need for an all-electric touring car series to step on the toes of its distant single-seater cousin. Rather, it's much easier to imagine them complementing one another on the same race weekend.

But Francois Ribeiro - head of Eurosport Events, promoter of Pure ETCR - doesn't want his new brainchild to play second fiddle to anything. It won't make its way on to a support package and it will co-exist alongside World Touring Cars.

What's more, the implications from his less-than-subtle jabs during a launch event in Paris is that Pure ETCR is here to show FE the error of its ways.

In the press conference there were a couple of lines from Ribeiro that stood out. He said: "Formula E promotes technology, it does not promote products. Touring cars have always been a great tool for manufacturers to promote their product.

"We promote real cars, not single-seaters, not electric SUVs."

That last part is quite an obvious dig at Extreme E, the electric off-road SUV racing series fronted by FE founder Alejandro Agag. We'll let that lie for now and instead pick up on the first part.

Unlike the BTCC, Pure ETCR exists to cut out the middle step of hybridisation - which the BTCC will begin testing this year

Ribeiro - who Autosport can't help but think would be great company over a beer - has a very valid point. Jaguar has been in FE for four seasons now and sells its all-electric I-PACE road car. But when it first rocked up, there wasn't so much as a hybrid car in its automotive range.

FE, at that time, for Jaguar was about developing the powertrain technology and not about directing customers to one of its showrooms. It was technology first, product second. However, whether incidental or not, it's worth pointing out that there is a contradiction in what Ribeiro is saying here.

Without focusing on too fine a point, Pure ETCR isn't exactly going to promote products in the truest sense. From what we've seen so far, Cupra will enter the series with its e-Racer, while Hyundai has extensively tested the Veloster ETCR car. Both of these are based on road cars that are front-wheel-drive hatchbacks. They are not close to delivering 680bhp and, crucially, nor are they rear-wheel drive as the Pure ETCR cars will be.

Yes, the race cars might look closer to their road car counterparts than FE's do, but the Pure ETCR machines will not directly promote the manufacturers' products either.

What Ribeiro and Pure ETCR have got spot on, however, is the first public exposure. A time trial at the 2020 Goodwood Festival of Speed is a masterstroke. The hillclimb is famous enough, attracting around 300,000 people over a weekend. Add that to the extensive press coverage, the thousands watching at home via the YouTube live stream and so on... that's a massive audience in which to make your non-competitive debut.

Amusingly, only two years ago the British Touring Car Championship cohort ran their own time trial up the hill in celebration of the series' 60th anniversary. Now look what's coming.

Unlike the BTCC, though, Pure ETCR exists to cut out the middle step of hybridisation - which the BTCC will begin testing this year. It jumps straight in with a standardised Williams Advanced Engineering powertrain that's capable of a staggering 680bhp in its most powerful trim.

Obviously the BTCC can argue that the requirement to switch to full EVs is some time off, so the hybrid era has time to breathe, but this gives Pure ETCR a comfortable headstart and a hefty headline 300bhp power advantage to boot.

A major feather in the cap of Pure ETCR is that the paddock will be powered by hydrogen-generators. FE is still tethered to smelly and loud diesel units that are very conspicuous as you walk past. This feels like a real move from Pure ETCR to eliminate the emissions rather than just move them off TV or to another point in the carbon cycle.

Also different to FE, between sessions Pure ETCR cars will charge in a central energy station in front of the fans. They won't be hidden in a garage.

The thought process is that it's better to go bold and potentially attract a whole new audience than arrive with something half-baked and just a touch too familiar

These moves, beyond the on-track action, puts electric power (which is still an elephant for some) right in the middle of the room. You have to admire that bold approach.

The heats format that replaces a conventional qualifying and race format will take more convincing. It's harder to get excited by just three cars at a time being released out of gimmicky starting gates to compete on track. If you were being uncharitable you'd argue here that Pure ETCR is employing change just for the sake of change.

But the thought process is that it's better to go bold - employ the best aspects of both World Rallycross and WTCR and combine the two - and potentially attract a whole new audience rather than arrive with something half-baked and just a touch too familiar.

And perhaps that's what's needed.

The analytics from the Autosport website tell us that readers don't engage with WTCR anywhere near as much as the BTCC, or FE and more. Perhaps by going radical in the first instance, Eurosport Events can hope for better this time around.