BMW will be lining up for the FIA Formula E Championship once again in2015/16 . The second season of the race series gets underway in Beijing on 17 October 2015, and BMW will be on hand as the Official Vehicle Partner.
The futuristic BMW i8 sports car will once again see action as the Safety Car in the trailblazing race series for electrically-powered formula machines. And the all-electric (and therefore emission-free) BMW i3 will perform the role of Medical Car, as it did in the series’ inaugural season. Added to which, a pair of BMW C evolution electric scooters and a BMW X5 xDrive40e plug-in hybrid will be making their Formula E debuts, as models from other BMW Group brands join the BMW i cars in the eDrive family .
Formula E will become an “open” championship in its second season. Compared with the inaugural edition of the series, in which all the cars were technically identical, eight of the ten teams will line up for the new season with their own technology. The technical changes will be concentrated on the powertrain – specifically the electric motor, the inverter, the transmission and the cooling system – and see the cars differing in terms of speeds, soundtrack and, above all, efficiency levels over the race distance.
The 2014/15 Formula E calendar featured e leven races in ten countries on three continents. Ten teams took their places on the grid for that opening season, each with two drivers at the wheel of standardised cars . Nelson Piquet Jr. wrapped up the title in the final race in London – and duly took his place in the history books as the first ever champion in this new series.
