It’s a fight that should have continued today with the return of the Hyderabad E-Prix, but instead, the all-electric championship has a seven-week gap from the last round in Diriyah until the cars hit the track again in Sao Paulo next month after the Indian race was cancelled as recently as January.
Rumblings that the future of the Hyderabad race was in trouble started as early as September last year, though, when Autosport revealed that it was set to drop off the calendar after the organising team behind the event had disbanded a month earlier, with promoters also pulling funding from the race.
Having not featured on the provisional 2024 calendar that was released in June, Hyderabad was eventually included as part of a revised schedule in October after intensive talks behind the scenes which seemed to have secured its return.
But the prospect of holding another race in India took a dive as a new local government in the Telangana region was elected – one which had openly opposed the staging of the race in 2023.
It was this political shake-up that prompted Formula E organisers to release a statement at the very end of December, stating it was "seeking urgent clarification" with the government about the staging of the race.
Less than two weeks later in early January and approximately a month until the event was scheduled to be held on 10 February, it was announced the race would not be going ahead to the frustration of championship organisers.
“I genuinely was gutted when the India race fell through,” Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds told Autosport.
“It’s a really important market for us to be in and I think it takes time when you start racing in a region or at a venue to find a cadence and understand what works, what doesn’t work.
Source: Autosport