The Most Tweeted About Formula E Driver Will Get An Extra Boost During The Race

Electric racing series Formula E has come up with a novel way of grabbing the attention of a new generation of racing fans. When the series kicks off in September, viewers will be able to tweet their favourite racer. All those @mentions will be counted up, and the driver with the highest number will get an extra boost for the final lap.

Every car in this first season is a Spark-Renault SRT 01E, which has a 226bhp electric motor. During the race, each driver gets two boosts to be used when they feel it will give them the best advantage. Admittedly a single extra boost won’t see one driver surging past the whole field to victory, but it’s not hard to see drivers stealing one hard-fought spot. If you’ve spent a whole race holding your place, only to lose out thanks to something totally out of your control, you wouldn’t be best pleased.

Another concern is that drivers from countries with large populations will have an unfair advantage, while computer whizz-kids could easily run a script that’ll constantly tweet their favourite driver. Maybe we’re missing the point, but this seems rather ridiculous and way too open to abuse. Motorsports are so heavily regulated, it seems mad that something so arbitrary could have an influence on proceedings.

We’ll get to see how well it works out when the season kicks off in Beijing in September.