The ABB FIA Formula E Season 8 debut is officially scheduled for January 28, 2022, as the green flag will be lowered for the first time in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia, and with it, the category will introduce a new qualifying format to define the single-seater positions on the starting grid.
The new modality will consist of head-to-head group eliminations. To this end, two groups of 11 drivers will start, ordered according to their position on the World Championship. Each will have 220 kW of power in their single-seaters for a 10-minute session to set lap records.
The top four from each group will advance to the ‘head-to-head’ phase, football-style format (quarter-finals, semi-final and final). This new pool of eight competitors will battle each other through an elimination session in which the power of the cars will be increased by 30 kW, i.e. 250 kW will be available for this leg of the qualification.
The pairings will be defined as follows from the quarterfinals onwards:
| Group A | Group B |
| A1 vs B4 | A3 vs B2 |
| A2 vs B3 | A4 vs B1 |
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The winner of the A1 vs B4 duel will face the winner of A2 vs B3 in the semifinals. Likewise, the winner of A3 vs B2 and A4 vs B1 will do the same. The semifinal winners will battle in the final, and of course, the overall winner will start on the Julius Baer Pole Position, the runner-up, second place; the semifinal losers will start third and fourth, respectively, and those who lost at the quarterfinals will line up from fifth to eighth place.
The rest of the grid will be positioned depending on the winning group, i.e., if the pole position is won by a Group A representative, that same group will start in unpaired positions, while the other group will start from unpaired positions.
The FIA World Motor Sport Council ratified the new order of the races. All this has been modified to provide more spectacle, and to open up the possibility for any driver to jump to the front of the standings.
“Our new qualifying format will match teams and drivers head-to-head throughout the season, while at the same time, it will allow any driver to take pole position. The design of the new qualifying format will be intuitive, unpredictable and entertaining for our fans,” said Alberto Longo, Championship Director and Formula E Co-Founder.
Written by | Ronald
