Formula E Heads to Miami With Racing and Broadcast Innovations To Drive Fan Engagement

Formula E Heads to Miami With Racing and Broadcast Innovations To Drive Fan Engagement Attack Mode is a key new feature this season By Michael Burns, SVG Europe

Friday, April 11, 2025 - 10:38 am

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As the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship heads to Miami this weekend for the 2025 Miami E-Prix, the electric motorsport is entering a new era, with both the racing and the broadcast taken to the next level. In its 11th season, this weekend marks the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship's first time in Miami since Season 1, this time to the Homestead-Miami Speedway. Earlier this season, SVG Europe sat down with Formula E Director, Broadcast and Content, Tim Glass to reflect on the challenges of keeping up with the sport's rapid growth - global broadcast figures are soaring - while maintaining its reputation for innovation.

The championship's growth can be seen in the new audiences it's attracting; a new free-to-air broadcast deal for the UK and Ireland will see all 16 E-Prix and qualifying sessions for Season 11 of the Formula E World Championship shown live on ITV4 and ITVX. A bespoke highlights show follows every race weekend.

As for innovation, the season opener, a race in S o Paulo, Brazil, on Dec. 7, showcased the potential of Formula E's new rocketship Gen 3 Evo car. It's very exciting, said Glass. We already knew it was the fastest-accelerating FIA single-seater; that the performance upgrades made it faster, stronger, and more agile; and that the all-wheel drive and improved grip would add to the spectacle. But to see it all unfold in a thrilling race bodes well for the season and the future of the sport. The Pole Lap alone was 4 seconds quicker than round the same track last season. Attack Mode is back to being a big weapon and is going to reshape the strategy of the racing.

Over the last couple of years, he continued, Attack Mode - which is when drivers go off the racing line to a designated drive-through area to unlock additional power - has almost been a bit like damage limitation. You'd get it out of the way early in the race, try and avoid losing too many positions, and work your way back. Whereas what we saw in Brazil is that, in this new car with the new tires, Attack Mode unleashes additional power that you can really maximize. You can attack towards the end of the race. I think that will be a fascinating development over the season, seeing how the different teams apply that strategy to the racing.

Glass cited one lesson from the race in Brazil: how important it is for the viewer - and commentators for rights-holding broadcasters - to understand the new strategic element around Attack Mode and how that is going to influence the climax of the race.

[Drivers] can take Attack Mode at two points over the race and split the eight minutes in three different ways: four and four, two and six, or six and two, he explained. At any different point, you have some drivers already in Attack Mode, some drivers with eight minutes left, while some drivers may not have any left.

The big learning for us from Brazil, he continued, came from deploying our graphics to show who's still got Attack Mode: how do we let not only the viewers know but also the commentators all over the world who don't necessarily have all the timings? How can we help them tell that story, to build that jeopardy towards the end? It's suggesting things like, [Oliver] Rowland might be in this position now, but he's still got six minutes of Attack Mode left. When's he going to take it?' That builds the narrative as it unfolds.

He added, One of the challenges that we have with Formula E is that it can be quite complex tuning in for the first time. We've got a new home this year in the UK; we're back on ITV, which is great, but it's a new audience. So how do we show the audience what's going on? We have developed some engaging new graphics for this season which are designed to help the viewer understand and connect with the racing. We have a new pointers system where we can tag multiple cars to help with driver and car identification, enhanced augmented reality to lean more into sporting data and telemetry, as well as our Virtual Race Engineer and team radio text. The exciting thing now is working out how that's going to fit into the narrative as it unfolds.

Capturing All the Angles The car may be the star, but new technology is key in the coverage. The Virtual Race Engineer - developed in partnership with Aurora Media Worldwide, Al Kamel, and Pace Tech - leverages AI to provide real-time insights for viewers.

It gives the viewer an independent view on events that can help explain what is happening or what is about to happen, explained Glass. We have our expert commentators who have their own interpretation of what's going on, but the Virtual Race Engineer can use the data to make predictions like driver X's energy is running low, and they cannot finish the race' or driver X has a 75% chance of winning from this position.'

The idea, he continued, is to try and give the viewer a bit of an insight while also giving the commentators new information to debate and react to. We had it last year and the accuracy of the tool is amazing, but we've given it a makeover this year to give it more impact on-screen. It has imagery and a new format to make it a little bit more digestible. It's another way of storytelling, introducing more graphics to help with that.

Existing features are also being enhanced. Across pretty much all audience research, Glass noted, we are told fans want to hear more from the drivers and want to hear more team radio because it's such a unique part of motorsport. You don't get to hear from a football player in the middle

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