Formula E have officially confirmed that pre-season testing at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia will resume on Thursday afternoon at 2pm CET (1pm GMT), as the investigation into Tuesday afternoon’s battery fire has concluded.
The drivers have lost four sessions of testing in total as a result of the investigation into what caused the battery fire on Tuesday, which took place in the WAE (formerly Williams Advanced Engineering) garage.
WAE are the suppliers of the Gen3 batteries and the fast-chargers, with the company having been investigating at the time of the fire why one of DS Penske’s cars had come to a halt. Rookie Robert Shwartzman – who was driving Stoffel Vandoorne’s car – stopped on circuit during the opening session of testing, resulting in a red flag.
After the car was returned to the pits, the battery was extracted and taken to WAE, where it ignited. In the history of Formula E, it’s the first time that an incident like this has happened, highlighting just how safe the World Championship is.
Testing was ultimately halted so that an investigation could be conducted into the cause of the blaze, resulting in no on-track action on Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday or Thursday morning.
Thankfully, the FIA has granted Formula E permission for on-track action to now resume, following the conclusion of their investigation into the fire.
Formula E released a statement which read: “Following the incident that happened on Tuesday and subsequent investigations, the FIA has authorised Formula E pre-season testing to resume today from 2pm CET.
“The investigations and findings provided by the technical suppliers and reviewed by the FIA confirm that it is acceptable for on-track activity to go ahead. Pre-season testing will now continue through Friday. An updated on-track session schedule will be distributed soon.”
This will come as a huge sigh of relief for five drivers, including reigning World Champion Jake Dennis, who were replaced by a rookie driver in the only session of the week so far. Following the cancelled sessions, the mandatory three hours of rookie testing has been dropped.
The returning Nyck de Vries will also not take part in Thursday afternoon’s session and will potentially – but not confirmed – miss Friday as well. Mahindra Racing have been forced to move to a new garage following the fire, which damaged equipment for the Dutchman’s car.
To make up for some of the lost time, Thursday afternoon’s session has been extended to 4.5 hours, rather than the usual three.
So what were the Immediate and ROOT causes of the fire.
What remedial and corrective actions are being taken.
Why is one such incident a TOLERABLE level of safety? What is the criteria compared to other Lithium Battery users eg BEV, Aviation?
Sounds more like a whitewash than a proper investigation to me in typical FIA culture.