Pure ETCR: the next big thing in electric racing?

That format is a little convoluted. As we witnessed in Hungary, the weekend begins with a glitzy live TV game show on the Friday night via the mobile Energy Station that travels to each event. The 12 drivers competing this year are split into two pools of six, then each pushes a button to find out at random which so-called Battle they will be drawn in and where they will line up on the three-car grids. On the Saturday, each driver races twice over just three laps from a starting gate that resembles something from a Hot Wheels loop-the-loop toy set. Then on the Sunday, there’s a solo time trial in which each car competes at maximum power (but oddly doesn’t count for championship points), before a pair of six-car Superfinals conclude the weekend. The driver who has scored the most points from all of the action is then crowned the ‘King of the Weekend’ (or Queen if/when a female driver joins in).

Gimmicky and full of jargon? Oh, yes. But Eurosport is going all out to offer something different that appeals to the gaming generation, so let’s go with it for now – especially as what really matters is the rear-wheel-drive touring cars. They’re a proper handful.

Three teams have signed up so far: Hyundai has built the Veloster N ETCR to take on Cupra’s Leon-bodied e-Racer, while a late addition has been the Romeo Ferraris team and its independently developed Alfa Romeo Giulia. Each is represented by four drivers sharing two cars between them (the hurdles and complications created by the pandemic means the teams didn’t have time to build a car for each). Then between the races, the cars are recharged via hydrogen fuel cell generators that are designed to be a fan feature (so no oily diesel generators undermining the inevitable sustainability message).

Everything about Pure ETCR is a bit different and it’s fun – but don’t just take our word for it.

Tom Chilton is a WTCC veteran who’s racing this year for Hyundai in Pure ETCR and in Ciceley Motorsport’s BMW 3 Series saloon in the British Touring Car Championship. “With these short, exciting Battles, it’s not a case of waiting until the tyres and brakes start wearing out and then figuring out where your rivals are weaker and where you’re stronger; you haven’t got much time for that,” says the 36-year-old Brit when we catch up with him the day before the races.

“You’ve just got to exist on your instincts, and I like that. That’s how I race and how I’ve had to race, spending my time in some of the most competitive touring car championships in the world. I will get only three to five laps of practice before I go into my race tomorrow, yet I haven’t raced here at the Hungaroring for five or six years. I have to get my braking points perfect on my first lap out of the box.”

What’s his Veloster N ETCR like to race, then? “The cars are heavy, which you have to bear in mind when you’re racing and when you’re calculating your moves,” he answers.

“The Power Up boost feature is what makes it really exciting. There will be some people leading at the beginning who will get overtaken at the end. You get 40 seconds of the extra 200kW [268bhp], and if you just use it on the main straight here, that’s 10 seconds for three-lap races, but you might want to use it on other bits of the circuit. Where and when you use it counts: if you can force someone to use more and earlier than you, you can use yours to get them at the end. At Aragón, there’s a kink that’s easy flat, but not with Power Up. It’s then totally different, because you have so much more power and suddenly 900Nm [664lb ft] of torque. It’s incredible, and it makes the racing exciting.”

His team-mate Vernay concurs: “It’s supercool and very challenging on these tyres with the weight of the car. Hopefully the series grows in the next few years with more rounds and more cars. There are many great drivers already, and we’re all happy to be here; we’re not being told to say that.”

Gavory is encouraged by the fan response so far, although no one at Eurosport ever talks about TV numbers. “The cars were just out of the oven when we started to race earlier this year, especially for Romeo Ferraris,” he says. “All of us were surprised by the potential: it’s huge. The cars are super-fun and pretty complicated to drive. They’re reliable, we’ve had no technical failures so far and the drivers are clever enough to fight very hard but to manage the cars so as not to smash them up.

“It’s complicated when you have two drivers per car. The manufacturers are happy and we as the promoter are happy, because we know that with more cars and more manufacturers, it will be super-interesting.”

Next year, Pure ETCR will become a full-blown FIA World Cup, just like its older sibling, the WTCR. There’s no sign of new manufacturers joining the party at this stage, but Eurosport is talking up the “real” element of these cars being based on what we see on the street, unlike Formula E, which has just lost Audi and BMW and will lose Mercedes-Benz after its next season.