The 2014-15 Formula E season concluded at the end of June in London, with a peak audience of nearly 1.2 million viewers watching Nelson Piquet Jr win the championship live on ITV in the UK. Since then, readers have been making their voices heard on the blog.
I posted my thoughts on Formula E’s first season a few weeks ago. Normally when I ask for people’s opinions, the responses are varied. This isn’t the case here. It is clear from the responses that the first season of Formula E was a success.
I absolutely loved the first season of the Formula E. It breathes fresh way to the sport and enhances where motor sport needs to go. Like Formula 1. – Mikey
Really enjoyed it. Surprisingly great and close racing. – Liam
Not everyone was happy about Formula E, though. Vadim was unhappy that the final round of the season was held in a park, thus closing it for the weekend:
This was a procession. Battersea Park completely wrong venue. No room to overtake and it’s trashed the park in the process. There is no way there were 30,000 people there. If there were 5,000 I’d be surprised.
There were several points made about ITV’s coverage, the first about the length of the pre-show:
I felt there was too much race “build up”, with no development and little in the way of news to report (a few driver changes), they could have cut this down. Similarly the guests in the studio were of little importance. Just some on track grid walks would suffice. – Ross
ITV did a decent job. Too much waffling on overall. There was no need for such large build ups for each race. – thomasjpitts
f1picko disagrees, feeling that ITV should do more with their Formula E coverage:
ITV need to do more with their coverage. At least present the first race, last race and all European races from the track. Show more covergae on ITV, so like, Practise live on ITV.com, Qualifying on ITV4, and then the race on ITV, with highlights on ITV4/ITV at least for all euro races and the first one.
By far the most important point for me surrounded the future of Formula E on ITV. No details for season two have yet to be announced, and as Buzzboy highlights, it is vital that Formula E does not head to pay-TV:
As an avid follower of F1 which following SKY and the BBC sell out deal as someone rightly put we are left with half a book and my interest has waned….so Formula E don’t sell out to Sky develop this sport on every level and it will grow.
The views surrounding the commentary were surprisingly split, with both positive and negative comments:
Loved the entire season and the TREMENDOUS commentary by Dario and Jack. So much fun to listen to. – not Jp
The commentary has been awful from Jack Nicholls as he gets to excited easily, he’s trying to mimic Murray Walker and it doesn’t work. – caine2013
Jennie Gow developed through the year and was decent. Great, enthusiastic commentators helped too. – thomasjpitts
There were a lot more views on the original post, but the above is just a snapshot of what blog readers are talking about.
Motorsport Broadcasting 
It seems to me, Christian Horner and others that the name is Ricciardo and NOT Riccardo.
Are these presenters just dumb or do they know something we don’t?
This is probably in the wrong thread.
Frank, when Daniel moved into F1 this was covered by various presenters. The man himself says it is ‘Rick-ardo’, not ‘Ricky-ardo’. Horner is one of the few who says ‘Ricky-ardo’ and it annoys me as he should be better placed than most to know better.
People complaining about the park being ‘trashed’: Get over it! Don’t make a big fuss over nothing because within a week or two the park was back to normal, and all traces removed. If a couple of skidmarks on the tarmac count as ”trashing” the place, then I think you’d probably have a stroke if you went to Glastonbury…
Formula E actually did a lot of good for Battersea; they raised money for maintenance costs, put in a new carpark that was needed, new benches, not to mention the wonders that it did for the image of Battersea Park. For anyone who says it was the ‘wrong venue’, really where else in London could they have feasibly held the race, without disrupting traffic, and all the other specific criteria that needed to be fulfilled? The alternative choices on offer: Shoving it into a stadium (A la Munich’s DTM round a few years back) or that bizarre inside/outside circuit that the Excel centre proposed would all have lacked atmosphere or scenery. I was there at Battersea myself and I know for a fact that during qualifying and the race the place was packed: The massive amount of people queuing to get to the podium/to get home after Sam Bird won on Sunday was testament to that. I think the annoying protest group who want to kick Formula E out was completely proven wrong; although there was the odd issue with the trackside view in place or the lack of nearby TV screens, they did well with what they had, were respectful of the wishes of local residents (excluding a section of the park for dog-walkers) and I think the event was a fair success overall.