The Miami ePrix will go green at 4 p.m. ET on Saturday, March 14. LIVE race coverage begins at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 2, with the re-air at 5:30 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1. Fans can also follow along with the FOX Sports GO app. Here are the latest headlines from Miami:
***Andretti’s Jean-Eric Vergne will start this afternoon’s Miami ePrix from the pole, following the Frenchman’s 1:05.953 lap time in qualifying. He edged out the China Racing entry of Nelson Piquet Jr. by just 0.050 seconds, with Nicolas Prost set to roll off third in the e.Dams Renault car. It marked Vergne's second pole in the last three races.
***Last minute issues with track construction resulted in a delay of nearly three hours this morning. A 45-minute practice session set to get underway at 8:15 a.m. ET didn’t start until 10:55 a.m. and was reduced to a single session instead of the originally scheduled two.
***It’s left drivers with very limited experience of the tricky 8-turn 1.34-mile circuit, although there were no significant incidents in either practice or qualifying this afternoon. Despite the morning delays, the race is still scheduled to get underway at 4 p.m. ET, with live coverage on FOX Sports 2 getting underway at 3:30 p.m. ET.
***The event been a massive effort from promoters Andretti Sports Marketing, which had to secure 163 permits from local authorities to close to down the streets for today’s race. Formula E CEO Alejandro Agag said that 80 percent of the grandstand tickets were pre-sold by midday Friday.
***Agag arrived at the circuit on Friday via yacht, thanks to a new partnership with VanDutch yachts, which plans to produce a high-performance electric yacht utilizing technology developed in partnership from Formula E team Amlin Aguri.
***Venturi driver Stephane Sarrazin credits his experience in Toyota’s FIA World Endurance Championship hybrid LMP1 car for helping him come to grips with the electric Spark-Renault SRT_01E racer. "The LMP1 experience has helped me a lot for Formula E, on how to recover [energy], how to brake, how to accelerate. It's different but it's helping me for the energy usage,” he told FOXSports.com.
***One of the unique aspects of Formula E is the Michelin Pilot Sport EV tire, which is a grooved tire that can be used in both dry and wet conditions. The first 18-inch tire to be used in a single-seater is both narrower and taller than traditional race tires. What’s more, each driver is supplied only with five new front tire and five new rear tires for each weekend, showcasing the durability of the tire.
***Only five of the ten teams have run the same lineup in each of the five events to date. The latest changes include the debut of Scott Speed at Andretti, 2013 FIA WEC champion Loic Duval at Dragon Racing as well as late fill-ins Vitantonio Liuzzi (Trulli) and Charles Pic (China Racing).
***With the additions of Liuzzi and Pic to the grid, 14 of the 20 drivers boast previous F1 race experience. The only team without an ex-F1 driver is Amlin Aguri, which coincidentally as a team has past experience as Super Aguri.
***A number of notable luminaries are scheduled to appear today, including Sir Richard Branson to see his Virgin Racing team in action. Others include Roger Penske, Ford Racing director Jamie Allison and FIA WEC CEO Gerard Neveu, as well as a number of IMSA teams and drivers stopping by prior to next weekend's Twelve Hours of Sebring.
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