London ePrix - A history-making penultimate double-header, how to watch, time schedule 21.07.2021: A circuit racing through the iconic Royal Docks, weaving inside and out. Battling head-to-head alongside the River Thames.After five years, it’s time to head back to the UK for the 2021 Heineken®️ London E-Prix.

A circuit racing through the iconic Royal Docks, weaving inside and out.  Battling head-to-head alongside the River Thames.After five years, it’s time to head back to the UK for the 2021 Heineken®️ London E-Prix.      

The 2020/21 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship is heading into the home straight and its penultimate double-header, with a return to electric street racing in London for the Heineken® London E-Prix Rounds 12 and 13 this weekend, July 24 & 25.



Formula E is set to return to the streets of London this weekend (July 24 & 25) for the first time since 2016's visit to Battersea Park, with the race for World Championship honours feistier than ever.




WAYS TO WATCH: Where and how to watch every minute of Season 7




Jaguar Racing's Sam Bird tops the pile heading into Rounds 12 and 13 after a storming recovery from zero to hero with a dominant lights-to-flag victory rounding out his trip to New York City after a troubled start to his weekend with a big shunt in Free Practice 1.



As it stands



Bird's victory marked his return to the podium for the first time since Round 3 in Rome and means the Brit will be the driver with the target on his back on home soil this weekend, with reigning champion Antonio Felix da Costa (DS TECHEETAH) and Robin Frijns (Envision Virgin Racing) tied for second in the standings and hot on Bird's heels.


Da Costa's title defence has been on an upward trajectory since that memorable last-ditch victory in Monaco, with points in Puebla enough for the Portuguese to hold station in an ultra-close championship squabble. A podium in Round 13 means he's right in the hunt now, just five points from the top.





Which driver will force their way to the top of the Championship?



Frijns sits level on points with da Costa but third on count-back, given the DS driver's race win. The Dutchman says he "couldn't care less" if he completes a winless run to the Drivers' title, he just wants to be that first Formula E Drivers' World Champion and he'll do whatever it takes.



Double points in New York City pushed Frijns' challenge on, and helped ensure Envision Virgin Racing would be top of the Teams' running heading to their home E-Prix - mighty impressive stuff from the customer team running Audi's e-tron FE07.



Edo Mortara (ROKiT Venturi Racing) struggled to replicate his Puebla heroics and a non-score sees him slip from top spot to fourth, while fourth and second-placed finishes in the Big Apple see form man Nick Cassidy make it two podiums in three races, firing him to fifth in the standings.



The Kiwi's just ahead of double champion Jean-Eric Vergne (DS TECHEETAH) who will be pleased to remain right in the fight despite a Round 13 technical problem forcing retirement, taking the sheen off his Saturday podium in Red Hook.



Just 13 points separate the top six in the Drivers' World Championship, with 25 on offer for a single race win, plus bonus points for topping Group Qualifying and setting the TAG Heuer Fastest Lap. Mathematically, that puts everyone from Bird to 15th-placed Jake Dennis (BMW i Andretti Motorsport) within a single round's worth of points of the summit.



The competition is fierce, and there's plenty of time for all-change - even with just a couple of race weekends remaining in Season 7.




Formula E returns to the UK capital for its first race since 2016, having raced around Battersea Park during Season 1 and 2. This year’s event marks more than five years (1,847 days) since London last hosted top-flight international motorsport. Before that, you'd have to go back to 1972 for an F2 meeting at the now-disused Crystal Palace circuit.



SCHEDULE: All the session times for the Heineken® London E-Prix





This time around, we're heading to East London's historic docklands and the ExCeL exhibition centre - host of a history-making double-header as the first international race series to race on an indoor/outdoor circuit - designed by British architect Simon Gibbons in collaboration with the FIA and Motorsport UK.



"It's fantastic to have London back on the calendar for this season," says Race Director Oli McCrudden. "We've had a London-shaped hole sitting in our calendar! We're able to race indoors because we're an electric racing series; we don't have internal combustion, or the exhaust noise that other championships have.


"The circuit's 2.2 kilometres long and 22 corners and we're taking a track from outside, through a car park up an access ramp and into the South Hall of the centre. We've developed some key technology to enable us to do this and it's not been an easy challenge. Some of the bigger street circuits in the world take months to build it and we simply don't have the luxury of that time.



"We will pop up a race track over the weekend and get it away so that we're not impacting the lives of citizens. The aim of the game was always to make sure that when the fans left they would be saying it was the most spectacular thing they'd ever seen."



"It looks really cool – it’s very tight and twisty coming in and out of the ExCeL arena, which is unlike any other race that's happened before," says Mahindra Racing's Alex Lynn. "There are so many questions; what visor you're going to have with the indoor/outdoor switch and the different lighting conditions; if it's wet outside and then dry inside, then what setup are you going to put on the car? In Formula E you never really know what’s going to happen until the lights go out."
 

 

 

- FORMULA E also photos