Ahead of the start of Formula E's fifth season of competition, Jaguar Racing's Mitch Evans believes that timed races will add to the series' excitement, with the implementation of 45-minute long E-Prix bringing an additional element of unpredictability.
As part of the all-electric single seater series' changes for its next generation of racing, Formula E will switch to timed races as opposed to set race distances, measured using a pre-defined number of laps.
Under timed races, each E-Prix's distance will vary, with race pace and potential disruptions such as safety cars meaning that the number of laps that will be completed by teams is unknown, bringing about an importance to accurately target energy management while remaining adaptable.
"We’re obviously going through our testing plan so that’s all in full force but in terms of the schedule, the way the races are going to run now going to time instead of distance is going to be I think really exciting to watch," said Evans when talking to Motorsport Week.
"I like the thought of a pit stop but I see why they [Formula E] veered away from that.
"The race can be the difference of being 40 laps, 43 laps depending on how fast the leader is going and whether they trigger another lap or whether they don’t but it’s going to be like a moving target for the whole race.
"I think it’s going to be quite exciting for the viewers, obviously with the hyperboost coming in, the strategy involved during the race is going to be crucial but even more challenging than anything I’ve experienced.
"Normally, we can just sort of calculate: ‘Ok, we’ve done this then, we’ve got this amount of laps, we’ve got this amount of energy,’ you know, we know what kind of targets we need to run at roughly, obviously things change in the race but now we don’t know how many laps there are.
"We’ll have a rough idea but we don’t actually know,” he added.
Formula E's 2018/19 season will commence on December 15 with the inaugural Riyadh E-Prix.
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