The second season of this championship - the first being an official FIA event - ended with the Spanish brand winning the constructors' title with the CUPRA EKS team and with Adrien Tambay, Mattias Ekstrom and Tom Blomqvist topping the world championship podium. All three drivers were consistent in every race, pushing the CUPRA e-Racer to the limit at every corner.
This year, the car has had to adapt to very different circuits, with totally changing weather conditions. From 40ºC at the Jarama circuit in Spain to the drizzle of the first race in Pau in France, the work of the CUPRA engineers led by Xavi Serra has been fundamental to the achievement of the titles.
The CUPRA e-Racer test
The CUPRA e-Racer, world champion in electric touring cars, is a 500kW (680hp) car, able to accelerate from 0 to 100km/h in just 3.2 seconds and a capacity of 65kW/h in the battery, more than enough for the sprint race format, with no more than six laps.
CUPRA provided us with the drivers who are part of its official team in the FIA-ETCR for this test. Among them were two world champions: Ekstrom and Tambay, who would be our instructors to teach us how to drive this race car. It is worth noting that, despite not having ABS, the car has some traction controls activated to help us modulate the power delivery without losing grip.
"The car is as easy as a go-kart until you find the limits," said Adrien Tambay, the recent winner of the FIA ETCR, who was our private instructor.
For him, the car is very easy to drive but much harder to handle when you are racing. The nearly 1800kg of weight, the rear-wheel drive, and the treaded tires, as these cars don't use slicks, made the car difficult to keep on the line under braking or traction on corner exit.
Same feeling, different sound
As in all racing cars, when you hit the roll bars with your helmet and the five-point seatbelt hugs you, you inevitably start to smile... and if the mechanics who ensure you are the same ones with whom you've shared the last two seasons on the circuits all over Europe, telling you nonsense, then you're in for a real treat.
When I turn the ignition on, I don't hear the usual rumble of the engines, forgetting that it's the first electric racing car I've driven. However, the sensations don't change. You press the brake all the way down and then the "Forward" button. The truth is I would prefer to move a gear lever and get into first gear or at least press the right-hand cam and go from N to 1, but in this "one gear" car, that won't happen. There are only 3 positions on the gear selector: Forward, Reverse, and Neutral.
Once you get the signal from the mechanic, you leave the pitbox and head for the track entrance. The first thing you do behind the pace car, a CUPRA Fomentor from which Adrien Tambay is explaining the circuit corner by corner, is to move the steering wheel to calibrate the responses to slight turns. In tight corners, you can turn the steering wheel up to 90º in both directions, and that, on this circuit with some very tight corners, is appreciated.
When the pace car gets out of the way and leaves you on your own, you have to start to appreciate the sensitivity of the throttle and brakes. As you would expect, in an electric car, you have full power immediately, in this case, 300kW, when you press the pedal to the floor. So you have to think about having the steering wheel straight and some space to squeeze out the full power.
Easy to drive, hard to find the limit
Despite being very docile and having the traction control slightly activated, you must be very sensitive. Similar sensation to the brakes, it brakes hard, without ABS, but you have to keep the car straight to avoid being overtaken by the rear axle under hard braking. Also, it's a heavy car that's noticeable when braking in a tight space.
As you get more confident, the car becomes easy to drive, it doesn't go very fast, and it does exactly what you steer. It enters very well with a stable front axle, but if you get too fond of the accelerator, you may be surprised by the oversteer, and it won't be easy to get it into the corner. All in all, the sensations in so few corners are of a docile car, but of course, it's not a big circuit, and you don't reach more than 120 km/h in any corner.
This test was just a first contact to experience the sensations of driving this CUPRA e-Racer, but it was enough to enjoy a unique sensation like a child. Used to all kinds of racing cars, the first time you enter a circuit with an electric racing car is something unforgettable. Being the driver of the first world-champion electric touring car, even if it's just for a few laps, is one of those memories that will stay with you for the rest of your life.
