Formula E has announced that the second day of the 2024 preseason testing at Valencia has been canceled following a fire incident on the first day of testing on Tuesday.
The session scheduled for Tuesday afternoon had already been postponed in light of the incident, which occurred in the garage unit occupied by battery provider WAE (formerly Williams Advanced Engineering).
Formula E later confirmed there would be no track action, adding the decision to delay the pre-season testing beginning on Wednesday had been made in response to the fire incident.
The Gen3 battery taken out of the DS Penske car driven by Robert Shwartzman, who stopped on the circuit in the morning session, is thought to be what started the fire, which broke out during the lunch break between Tuesday’s two Formula E sessions.
The car’s battery had been taken from the DS Penske facility and sent to the WAE garage for an inspection.
The aforementioned garage was damaged as a result, although Formula E said that anything further had been “contained following the activation of emergency procedures” in its statement confirming that Wednesday’s running would not take place.
A WAE employee was sent to the hospital for precautionary checkups and according to Formula E, the one patient who was taken to the hospital was not given any further treatment.
The all-electric series pointed out that a joint investigation including the FIA and local fire authorities had started earlier in the day was still ongoing but stated that the problem had already been identified and was currently being fixed.
For Formula E and its teams, who are testing the series’ new fast-charging energy boosters this week, the loss of a second running day marks a major setback as the sport prepares for 2024.
The 11 Formula E teams that are in attendance in Valencia are split across eight charging units.
In the session that took place on Tuesday morning, Jaguar’s Mitch Evans was fastest. Evans beat Sebastien Buemi of the Jaguar customer team Envision and Antonio Felix da Costa of Porsche who finished second and third respectively.
