Formula E has really been having a heck of a time for the past 12 months—like most of us, to be fair. Organizing street races to try to get closer to people at a time where you’re meant to be staying far away from each other has proven as hard as that sounds. By the time we should have been at the first race of the year, in January we only had half a calendar even on the cards.
The good news is, racing did get underway and despite the difficulties of trying to move around in COVID, four races have now happened across the Diriyah and Rome rounds. Formula E is in Valencia, Spain this weekend for its first race at a “proper” circuit that’s being used vaguely correctly, bar a big chicane. The excitement of a fifth and sixth round has prompted the rest of the calendar to emerge, with Mexico, New York, London and Berlin rounding out FE’s first season as a true world championship.
The Mexican round shifts from Autodromo Hermano Rodriguez, in Mexico City, to Autodromo Miguel E. Abed, a slightly obscure oval track in more remote Puebla. Hermano Rodriguez has been the subject of rumors amongst the FE paddock about a possible double event with Formula 1 in the future but is currently a COVID field hospital, so couldn’t be used for this year’s race.
Returning to hosting a race after previously being COVID hospitals are both the New York and London venues. The New York E-Prix, on July 10 and 11, is confirmed as being back in Red Hook, around the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, which had previously been acting as a hospital and then vaccination center. London’s ExCel center, which had been due to host the final round of Formula E in 2020, was also turned into a hospital but it will—hopefully—get the chance to have a race this year.
Formula 1 has recently announced a Miami Grand Prix for 2022 but failed to get to the Americas for any races at all last year, and the Canadian Grand Prix is currently under serious question. If Formula E can pull off its Mexico and New York rounds then it could act as a benchmark for how its older cousin would need to operate transatlantically.
Formula E will cap off its season in Berlin, at Tempelhof former airfield, but with just the normal doubleheader—not six races in nine days again. Thank god.
The Formula E 2020-2021 Calendar (Season 7)
- Rounds 1&2, Diriyah, Saudi Arabia: February 26-27
- Rounds 3&4, EUR Street Circuit, Rome: April 10-11
- Rounds 5&6, Circuit Ricardo Tormo, Valencia: April 24-25
- Round 7, Monaco Street Circuit: May 8
- Rounds 8&9, Puebla, Mexico: June 19-20
- Rounds 10&11, Brooklyn Street Circuit, New York: July 10 and 11
- Rounds 12&13, London ExCel: July 24-25
- Rounds 14&15, Tempelhof, Berlin: August 14-15
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