Formula E gets London Grand Prix together - before F1!

It is the dream of many motorsport promoters to host a race in the centre of London - F1's Bernie Ecclestone included. But the new FIA electric racing championship Formula E is set to get there first.

The final round of the inaugural Formula E championship will take place on June 27 & 28 and yesterday we were given a chance to cycle around the track, which uses internal roads in London's Battersea Park.

It's a highly unusual location for a motorsport event, but the track looks fast and exciting (click below to enlarge); the iconic Battersea Power station dominates the skyline along the back straight!

Formula E has a five year contract to race in Battersea Park and has invested in improvements with over £4 million spent on track surfacing and reprofiling some of the pavements and kerbs for a better track flow.

The most obvious taking point about the picturesque track is the amount of camber; the road surface rises in the middle and there are some fast corners where getting on the wrong line will be a recipe for disaster. This short clip below gives a flavour of the parkland feel of the track.

"Whoever designed this beautiful park designed it with a race track in the middle of it," joked FE series CEO Alejandro Agag. He added that the event has sold better than any of the previous Formula E events already, with over 30,000 tickets sold so far.

There are some new ideas on the fan experience side, which will be interesting to observe, including a special fan village , close to the paddock, where fans will be able to set their own 'virtual' fastest lap on special simulators, with prizes for the fastest as well as use tools such as Batak reaction simulator, which is widely used by drivers and other professional sportsmen and hand-eye co-ordination tests with Buzzwire.

There will be 16,000 free headsets to listen to live commentary of the track action. Battersea is a double header race, with practice, qualifying and a race taking place on each of two consecutive days.

Formula E also has the 'Fan boost' feature, whereby fans can vote for their favourite drivers online and through social media. The three drivers who receive the most votes, prior to a race, each receive a ‘power boost’ increasing their car’s power from 150,000 Watts to 180,000 Watts, or by 40 brake horsepower for 5 seconds. It's like having an ERS boost in F1, when others don't.

The first season seems to have gone reasonably well, with events in Beijing, Berlin, Monaco among others. However, crucial to the survival of the series was investment from John Malone's Liberty Media, the owners of Discovery Channel and one of the bidders for the commercial right holding company of F1, currently controlled by CVC. Their F1 bid has been rejected so far by CVC, but they have not gone away totally, according to industry sources.

Liberty's intervention seems to have reassured other investors and appears to have helped attract sponsorship from companies like Visa, which is title sponsor of the London races.

For season two, stating this September, Formula E will operate as an 'open championship', allowing teams and

manufacturers the opportunity to showcase their own electrical energy innovations. Citroen is entering and as many as seven teams are believed to be planning to build their own power train. of course this will increase the costs of competition and the management will have to be careful not to open up a Pandora's Box of cost-control troubles, such as F1 wrestles with currently.

The London Evening Standard reported this week that London's Mayor Boris Johnson, who has been a keen supporter of the Battersea Park event, has backed plans to invest £100m in electric vehicle charging points and other infrastructure in an attempt to kick start a greater wave of electric car usage in the city.

"Formula E wants to contribute to that in terms of technology and awareness, that's why we are here," said Agag. "Formula E aims to represent a vision for the future of the motor industry, serving as a framework for R&D around the electric vehicle, accelerating general interest in these cars and promoting clean energy and sustainability."

The FIA Formula E Visa London ePrix takes place on 27th and 28th June at Battersea park, London.