The Notebook: Hyderabad

Get he inside line for Hyderabad with insights powered by Hewlett Packard Enterprise

The Hyderabad Street Circuit is Formula E’s newest addition, and with high-speed stretches and 18 technical corners, embodies the city’s own fast-paced way of life.

With no historical data, the track represents a competitive reset for drivers and teams alike. The field is perched on level footing, and whoever adapts the fastest will likely perform the best.

Now in his ninth season of competition, Maserati MSG Racing’s Racing Director, Jérémy Colançon, is a leading technical figure, and with four World Championship titles, is one of the most decorated members of the paddock.

Using insights powered by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the two-time Engineer of the Year Award winner highlights every element of performance for the first of four new venues in 2023.

Energy Management: In Hyderabad, we expect to see a similar ratio between lifting and regenerating energy to the races in Mexico City and Diriyah. This should produce some good action, and we can expect a lot of overtaking in Turns One and Three, which are also the best places to recover energy during the E-Prix.

A Level Playing Field: In Diriyah, we saw quite clearly that Porsche is one step ahead of the grid and is therefore, the team to beat, but at this stage of the season, every team is making progress with their performance. As a brand-new circuit that we haven’t competed on before, Hyderabad should level the playing field, and teams should be quite close in terms of pace. Since Riyadh, we have been working hard to make improvements, and with the help of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, have been able to examine our data with speed and efficiency to identify potential performance gains.

Track Conditions: In every race so far this season, we have experienced very different track conditions and that will be the same this weekend. Mexico City was very dry and quite hot, Diriyah was quite cold because we were racing at night, and in Hyderabad, we will have high temperatures and a lot of humidity. It will be extremely important to adapt our tyre strategy in both qualifying and the race to match the conditions, and this should unlock more performance.

Virtual vs. Reality: Despite Hyderabad being completely new, we have quite a good understanding of the circuit already. With laser scans of the track, we know the location of every bump and surface change, but it will be important to validate this information during the track walk. We will need to look at the geometry and angle of the corners, and the level of grip, and this will further inform our approach for the weekend.

Consistency is Key: As a team, we have traditionally performed quite well on new circuits. This comes down to the effective and efficient processes we have in place but is also informed by having a strong understanding of the package at our disposal. At this early stage of Formula E’s Gen3 era, we are still learning and adding to our knowledge of the package, and at this time, it will be very important to adapt our approaches and processes accordingly so we can work in a versatile way.