The 2017 New York City ePrix (formally the 2017 FIA Formula E Qualcomm New York City ePrix) were a pair of Formula E electric car races held on July 15 and 16, 2017 at Brooklyn Street Circuit in Red Hook, Brooklyn before a two-day crowd of 20,000 people. They were the ninth and tenth races of the 2016–17 Formula E Championship and the first New York City ePrix. The first race, contested over 43 laps on July 15, was won by Virgin driver Sam Bird after starting from fourth place. The Techeetah duo of Jean-Éric Vergne and Stéphane Sarrazin took second and third. The longer 49-lap race held the next day was won by Bird from pole position. Mahindra teammates Felix Rosenqvist and Nick Heidfeld finished second and third.
Alex Lynn started from pole position for the first race by recording the fastest lap in qualifying, but Daniel Abt passed him at the start. Abt elected to conserve electrical energy, meaning he could not establish a significant lead at the front and later struggled with his brakes, prompting his team to request he focus on harvesting electrical energy. After twice not being able to pass Abt two laps previously, Bird overtook Abt for first the lead on lap 16. Bird maintained the lead after switching into a second car, until a safety car was necessitated for Heidfeld's car. At the lap 41-restart, Bird blocked a pass by Vergne on the final lap to win. There were two lead changes among two different drivers during the course of the race.
Bird carried over his form from the previous day and won the pole position for the second race, but lost the lead to Rosenqvist at the start. However, he was able to remain close behind Rosenqvist early in the race, catching the latter off guard following a restart, and passed him to retake the lead on the 11th lap. Lynn stopped his car on track nine laps later, prompting a full course yellow flag, and several drivers made pit stops to switch into their second cars. Bird chose to remain on track for one additional lap, and retook the lead with extra electrical energy. Bird opened up a significant lead over the rest of the field, and won the race. There was one lead change among two different drivers during the course of the race.
The victories were Bird's fourth and fifth of his career and he became the first driver to win both races of a double header weekend since Nico Prost at the 2016 London ePrix. The results allowed Lucas di Grassi to lower the lead of Drivers' Championship leader Sébastien Buemi (who was absent because of a World Endurance Championship commitment) to ten points. Rosenqvist maintained third position while Bird's two victories moved him from eighth to fourth and Prost fell to fifth. e.Dams-Renault maintained their Teams' Championship lead with 229 points and increased their gap over Audi Sport ABT by seven points. Mahindra remained in third and Virgin consolidated fourth with two races left in the season.
Background to race weekend
Preview Coming into the double header from Berlin five weeks earlier, e.Dams-Renault driver Sébastien Buemi led the Drivers' Championship with 157 points, 32 ahead Lucas di Grassi in second, and a further 39 in front of third-placed Felix Rosenqvist. Nico Prost was fourth on 72 points, nine points ahead of Nick Heidfeld in fifth position. e.Dams-Renault led the Teams' Championship with 229 points; Audi Sport ABT were second on 171 points, and Mahindra third with 149 points. With 97 points, Virgin were in fourth place, and Techeetah was fifth 40 points adrift.
Preparations In March 2014, it was announced that Formula E was working with New York City authorities to bring a motor race to the area. Formula E's founder Alejandro Agag told CNN in May 2016 he was "very optimistic" about the possibility of hosting an event in the city, having visited potential sites there, "Our dream would be to have a race in New York." Originally, planners considered Governors Island, Central Park, and Liberty State Park in Jersey City as possible locations for the track. However, these sites were not chosen since a Governors Island track would have been too costly; a Central Park circuit would have required cutting down trees; and Liberty State Park is outside city limits. New York City deputy mayor Alicia Glen visited Paris in May 2016. After attending the ePrix, she lent her support to the New York City race with backing from the New York City Economic Development Corporation. A one-year contract to stage the race was signed with a renewal option every year for the next ten years.
On September 21, 2016, officials announced the New York City ePrix would be held on the long Brooklyn Street Circuit in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook. Senior figures supported the race with mayor Bill de Blasio calling Red Hook the place where is "no better home for the ePrix", and the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) president Jean Todt said bringing the series to the city was "an amazing achievement in itself". The event was confirmed one week later as part of Formula E's 2016–17 schedule by the FIA World Motor Sports Council as a double header round. They were the ninth and tenth single-seater electric car races of the Championship, and were held on July 15 and 16, 2017. It was the first FIA-sanctioned open-wheel motor sport round to be held in New York City, and its first motor race since 1896. The New York City ePrix was the third city to hold a Formula E race in the United States, following the Miami ePrix in 2015 and the Long Beach ePrix in 2015 and 2016. The press expected the races to be attended by about 18,000 to 40,000 spectators.
The first pictures of the planned layout were released to the media on September 21. Construction of the track began on July 2, 13 days before the first race, and finished 11 days later. More than $20 million was spent renovating the area which included the dismantling of pedestrian crosswalks, sections of curb and bus canopies because they protruded into the circuit and a terminal guardhouse in the track's centre was rebuilt to make it portable for moving before and after the event. Rosenqvist described the track as "one of those really technical circuits" and believed the layout was comparable to the Circuit des Invalides.
World Endurance Championship clash
With the races scheduled for July 15 and 16, the event conflicted with the 2017 6 Hours of Nürburgring. The clash occurred because the CEO of the World Endurance Championship (WEC) Gérard Neveu and teams agreed not to hold a race within four weeks after the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and the Nürburgring required a two-week gap leading into a proposed 30 July date for the German Grand Prix. Previously Neveu and Agag had a "gentlemen's agreement", preventing their respective series from holding races on the same weekend as several drivers participate in both disciplines. The dates for the New York City races could not be changed because of its location and ship docking schedules, and the Nürburgring event was not rescheduled due to freight needing transporting to Mexico City and the circuit had been rented for the weekend after. WEC and Formula E reached an agreement in July 2017, preventing both series from clashing in 2018.
Prost and Nelson Piquet Jr. (Jaguar) were the first two WEC drivers to confirm their participation in New York in February, with Jaguar's Adam Carroll leaving the endurance racing series to focus on Formula E. Sam Bird reached an agreement with his team AF Corse to contest the New York races, and was partnered at Virgin by the team's development driver Alex Lynn after José María López was required to prioritize WEC by Toyota. Championship leader Buemi could not reach an agreement that would allow him to enter the first race because of logistical problems, and Toyota mandated he attend the Nürburgring WEC round. He was replaced by 2016 GP2 Series champion and Super Formula driver Pierre Gasly.
Race one
Practice and qualifying
Two practice sessions—both on Saturday morning—were held before the late afternoon race. The first session ran for 45 minutes and the second for 30 minutes. A 30-minute shakedown session took place on Friday afternoon in which no competitive lap times were set was held on a wet track for the first time in Formula E history. Lynn was fastest in the first session, which took place on a damp track created by heavy rain from Friday but dried as the session progressed, with a late lap of 1 minute, 5.977 seconds, almost two-tenths of a second faster than teammate Bird in second and Rosenqvist third. Prost was fourth-fastest, ahead of both Audi Sport ABT drivers Daniel Abt and di Grassi. Jérôme d'Ambrosio, Mitch Evans, Robin Frijns and Adam Carroll rounded out the session's top-ten drivers. The session was temporarily halted three minutes in when Tom Dillmann (Venturi) stopped his car on track and could not restart. Jean-Éric Vergne later drifted wide onto the run-off area but avoided damage to his car. Rosenqvist used of power to set the second practice session's fastest lap time, at 1 minute, 2.423 seconds despite minor contact with a wall leaving turn five with his right-rear tire, damaging its suspension. The damage however was not severe enough to rule him out and was repaired. He was three-tenths of a second faster than teammate Heidfeld in second and Prost third. Bird, the Audi Sport ABT duo of di Grassi and Abt, Loïc Duval, Evans, Frijns and Lynn completed the top ten. Late in the session, di Grassi drove to the side of the track with a battery management system problem and could not restart his car, necessitating race control to activate the full course yellow procedure.
Saturday's afternoon qualifying session ran for 60 minutes and was divided into four groups of five cars. Each group was determined by a lottery system and was permitted six minutes of on-track activity. All drivers were limited to two timed laps with one at maximum power. The fastest five overall competitors in the four groups participated in a "Super Pole" session with one driver on the track at any time going out in reverse order from fifth to first. Each of the five drivers was limited to one timed lap and the starting order was determined by the competitor's fastest times (Super Pole from first to fifth, and group qualifying from sixth to twentieth). The driver and team who recorded the fastest time were awarded three points towards their respective championships. Qualifying took place in dry and warm weather. In the first group of five runners, Vergne paced the session despite minor contact with a barrier lining the circuit, going four-tenths of a second faster than second-placed Duval. Andretti teammates Frijns and António Félix da Costa were third and fourth (the latter lightly impacted a wall between the eighth and ninth corners) and Gasly was the group's slowest driver after hitting a concrete wall, damaging his suspension. D'Ambrosio set the second group's fastest lap time, three-tenths of a second faster than Heidfeld in second. Prost, Stéphane Sarrazin and Evans were group two's slowest three participants. In the third group, Abt was fastest with Lynn second. Piquet took third with Carroll fourth. Rosenqvist slid and went deep at the turn one hairpin, losing him two seconds of time and was the third group's slowest entrant.