This Saturday, February 25, Formula E lands for the first time in Cape Town, South Africa for the upcoming E-Prix corresponding to season 9, debut of the Gen3 era. It will be the second of three consecutive races in new host cities.
Table Mountain will set the stage for Round 5 on the streets of Cape Town this weekend, following an unforgettable debut race in Hyderabad, India, with the next stop in São Paulo, Brazil.
The Mother City’s Green Point district provides the location for 30 scheduled laps of the 2.921km high-speed circuit, which winds around the DHL Stadium and skirts the coastline overlooking Robben Island.
The track is expected to be the fastest of the 16-race season and features bumpy braking zones, a tight chicane at turns 4, 5 and 6 and a narrow, dynamic mid-lap section that will challenge the 22 drivers and their Gen3 machines. – the fastest, lightest, most powerful and efficient electric race car ever built.
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Porsche in the Lead
With a quarter of the season complete, the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team and driver Pascal Wehrlein lead the way in both the World Team and Drivers’ Championships.
A double-victory for the German in Diriyah followed a podium finish in the season opener in Mexico City. Hyderabad proved to be a test for the Stuttgart-based manufacturer, with a technical issue jeopardizing Wehrlein’s weekend due to a heavy deviation from practice.
Wehrlein and Porsche were able to find the root cause of the problem and recovered to compete after they came fourth behind António Félix da Costa, meaning the German team leads the Formula E standings for the first time in its fourth season of competition.
Porsche didn’t have it all its own way in Hyderabad. Avalanche Andretti Formula E team driver Jake Dennis, driven by the Porsche 99X Electric Gen3, missed out on a possible top-three result after a run-in with René Rast (NEOM McLaren Formula E Team).
The 16th-place result proved costly for Dennis, who won Round 1 in Mexico and finished second in both Diriyah races, allowing him to extend his lead in the standings over Dennis, who remains in second place.
Local Expectations
South African native and Jaguar TCS Racing Team Principal James Barclay said that having been born in the country and having seen the last world championship race there in 1993 at Kyalami, it is a proud moment to be part of the return of motorsport.
Meanwhile, Johannesburg-born racer Kelvin van der Linde was named to the ABT CUPRA lineup in place of the injured Robin Frijns, marking a home debut in Formula E for the South African on the same weekend that his brother Sheldon races sports cars.
