MOTORSPORT: Historic Pikes Peak win for electric car

An electric car has won America’s famed Pikes Peak hillclimb for the first time, while the first Formula E championship for open-wheeler all-electric cars went down to the wire in London.

American-based New Zealander Rhys Millen conquered Pikes Peak in Colorado in the Latvian-built Drive eO PP03 open-top prototype sports car.

But Millen fell short of his aim of breaking nine minutes for the 20km climb, clocking 9:07.222.

While he was about a second under the previous record for a battery-powered car he was a long way off the outright best, 8:13.878, set by French rally great Sebastien Loeb two years ago in a Peugeot 208 T16.

Japan’s Nobuhiro 'Monster' Tajima drove his Rimac-engined electric car, called the e-Runner, to second place at the weekend, celebrating his 65th birthday with a run of 9:32.401.

Drive eO principal Khristaps Dambis said that while the PP03 could generate the power output required (it delivers 1020kW, or 1367hp) the 50kWh lithium-ion battery pack made it too heavy to match the nimbleness of Loeb’s Peugeot.

The PP03 has six YASA-400 electric motors, with controllers developed in-house by Drive eO, and Dambis is confident that in time the speed gap between electric and fossil-fuelled cars can be bridged.

Meanwhile, Brazilian Nelson Piquet Junior narrowly clinched the Formula E title at the end of two races in London’s Battersea Park ahead of Swiss driver Sebastien Buemi rather than fellow Brazilian Lucas di Grassi, who had been the closest challenger to Piquet ahead of the last round.

Buemi won the first of the London races on Saturday for French F1 legend Alain Prost’s e.dams team and started 10 places ahead of Piquet on Sunday.

However, a spin on his out lap after drivers made their mid-race car changes – because the batteries in the Spark-Renault SRT_01Es do not last the full hour of an event – cost Buemi the title.

Piquet, the son of triple Formula One world champion Nelson Piquet Senior, took the Formula E crown a solitary point, 144-143, having finished Sunday’s race in seventh place, after starting 16th on the grid, while Buemi finished fifth.

Frenchman Stephane Sarrazin crossed the finish line first but was penalised 49 seconds for power over-use, which dropped him to 15th in the final race results and gave the victory to Britain’s Sam Bird, driving for Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin team.

Piquet, who drove for Team China Racing, improved four places at the start from his lowly grid position but then conserved energy and stayed out a lap longer than the rest of the field before swapping cars.

He rejoined in 10th place and it was only in the last six laps that he climbed back to a position to win the championship.

He said he had avoided asking his team questions over the radio about how the title fight was placed and “didn’t know until that I had won until I crossed the finish line”.

The Formula E cars were identical in this inaugural season but eight companies have been given the green light to develop the powertrain for coming years.

Aviation tycoon Branson made the bold claim at the weekend that Formula E could rival F1’s appeal within five years.

“There will come a time when Formula E will overtake F1,” Branson said.

“In four or five years’ time I think you'll find that Formula E will overtake F1 in terms of number of people.

“Formula E will grow quickly, as green energy is going to grow quickly.

"People who come to see Formula E love it and that means it is will grow naturally.”

However, the head of the dominant Mercedes F1 team, Toto Wolff, said comparing FE to F1 was “rubbish”.

Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) president Jean Todt also said it was “nonsense”.

“It is a big mistake trying to compare two different things,” Todt said.

“Formula E has races with two cars [per driver], races in the city and very different budgets – it is a nonsense to compare it with F1.

“We need F1 as the pinnacle of motorsport, but we also need Formula E, the World Endurance Championship, rallying and touring cars.”

Todt said that that keeping control of costs in Formula E would be a key to it succeeding.