Formula E in Battersea Park, London

Saturday was probably the warmest and sunniest day that we have had all summer. A few months ago, the bloke booked a standing area to watch the Formula E racing. The races are similar to Formula 1 cars, but these are electric race cars.  We watched part of the qualifying and the race and wandered around the eVillage.

Our standing area was #26, which was in the middle of a straight stretch between two turns in the track, so the bloke knew that there would be opportunities for over-taking, which there were. When we first arrived during the morning practice, the stands were fairly empty and we got a decent view. However, the safety barriers in place and double barriers do mean that it was impossible to get decent photographs.

We headed toward eVillage where all the merchandising and food stands are located. On the way, there was only one section near entry to pit lanes where there was a gap in the barriers where I could snap a couple of very restricted-view photographs.

There were several bridges that crossed the tracks on our way, which we had to walk on in order to get to eVillage. We also saw the pit area.

Pits

Pit entrance

The eVillage could be used by general admission, but we paid more for our standing area to have full access. We watched some of the qualifying from the screens here (as we were late to return to our standing area due to queueing for the race simulators that the bloke wanted to do, and the queue was over an hour). We also managed to get lunch in this area, which was quick but costly. The sponsor stands and merchandising areas were located in eVillage too. 

We made our way back around to where our standing area (#26) was located, but just as we were a couple of hundred yards away, the area we came to earlier was now fenced off with security standing guard. This meant that we had to back-track. Battersea Park is huge, so we had to walk all the way back to eVillage and back around. We thought there would be a shortcut through the lake, but we never found one, so we had to circle all the way around it and then back-track all the way through to our costly standing area. My feet were shattered, and the viewing area are all standing only.

We missed some of the cars and bikes going through, but I managed to capture this guy doing stunts on a bike when we arrived, and this was followed by some electric cars. The standing area was already busy with all the first level standing areas taken on the three tiers, and the only spots available were behind people or on the stairs. 

For the cost of the tickets paid, it was impossible to really see a lot with all of the heads in the view and the safety fencing in place. I feel they crammed too many people into the standing areas, and having to walk all the way back around (because they closed a gate that was previously opened) meant we lost chance of securing a better area to watch the race. The standing area got busier and busier just before the race. Too many people were crammed into this small space, and I had trouble seeing the cars over the heads in front and below, even though I am quite tall myself.

We had a good day, but there are a few points that the organisers failed on that need to be worked on in case Formula E returns to London, such as:

• visitor flow around the track and access to/from standing areas. The park is huge, and walkways that were open earlier in the day became closed off later on in the day, and access to these areas meant a very long walk in the hot temperatures.
• the maintenance of the narrow track and bumps/slopes. This meant that the race had to have a safety car start. Parts were very unsafe for the cars, and this required some work before the big race.
• the location of additional concession stands. Drinks and food are not permitted, and as it was a hot day with a lot of walking, more concession stands with food and drink need to be placed in more areas instead of mainly the eVillage. I started to get dehydrated after all of the walking on a hot day; lucky for me, the standing area I was in had a concession stand behind it in order for me to buy a drink, but these concession areas were rare outside of eVillage.
• Tickets to the standing areas is costly; restrict the amount of people allowed in to the space as the view was obscured.

The area that the track covers in Battersea Park is a huge area. I know this is the first race that London has had since the early 1970s, so maybe London's forgotten how to host an event like this. In my view, London has a way to go to rectify these issues and get ahead of the game. Fortunately, the main race was a good one, and the weather on both days was good, but I can foresee the track becoming very dangerous if the rain had managed to linger on for a longer time on the day of the main race.