Welcome to It Only Takes E Minute, where the racing is dominated by spins in the opening and closing laps.

Felix Rosenqvist earned himself pole position for the second race in Hong Kong, but the Mahindra driver spun on the first lap and dropped himself down to 11th place. That was after a safety car start, where the cars trawled around for one lap due to a failure of the starting lights. The action got going, but wasn’t as frantic as yesterday’s race thanks to the extra laps and fuel saving required.

Rookie driver Edoardo Mortara moved into the lead of the race, and held on to it until just before the end. There, he admitted, he was pushing too hard, going for glory, and spun himself out of a race win. He crossed the line third, with Rosenqvist, who had recovered well, ahead of him. Daniel Abt inherited the win.

But, there was more drama to come as the Audi Sport car was found to have been illegal and Abt was disqualified from the race. The team are appealing the decision, but for now that promotes Rosenqvist back into the winning position, that he had spun himself out on so early on.

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Welcome to It Only Takes E Minute, where a red flag delay isn’t enough to dampen a great race.

Jean-Éric Vergne had pole position for the first round of the 2017/18 Formula E season, but he lost out to Sam Bird after an early red flag period halted the race. The front runners got through the first few corners cleanly but at the back, Lotterer hit the barriers and caused a four-car traffic jam as the others couldn’t get past.

A lengthy red flag period followed as the FIA cleared the track and then tried to decide how best to restart the race. Eventually the action got going again, and Sam Bird moved into the lead, from where he never looked back. Even with a dodgy pit stop where he missed the garage, knocked over some equipment, earned and served a drive through penalty, he stayed ahead and took the chequered flag. Vergne followed for second, holding off a furious Nick Heidfeld who questioned the Frenchman’s defending and blocking techniques.

Elsewhere, Jérôme D’Ambrosio was in and out of the pit lane after picking up car trouble, Buemi and Di Grassi finished outside the top ten after an early collision, and Mario Engel finished an impressive fourth after a tough fight but was demoted to 14th after a post-race time penalty for exceeding max power.

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You’re listening to It Only Takes E Minute, where we celebrate the brilliant mascot that is Bibendum.

Much of the focus of Formula E tyre supplier Michelin is on season five of the sport, as they are set to introduce tyres for the brand new next-generation cars. In the meantime, though, they have agreed to extend their partnership with the sport until the end of the 2021 season, bringing their total tenure up to six years.

The challenge Formula E presents to Michelin isn’t to be underestimated – they have created unique treaded tyres that are all-weather, ready to handle the wet conditions as well as the dry. There hasn’t been a wet race yet to see how they handle, but it has to happen at some point.

FIA President, Jean Todt, said: “Season five will mark the start of the exciting next generation of the Formula E Championship and I’m pleased to see that Michelin will continue to be a part of this journey as the official tyre supplier.”

For Michelin, Pascal Couasnon, Motorsport Director, added: “After having developed innovations such as the firs highly energy efficient 18-inch competition tyres for single-seaters, Michelin will continue its research and technology transfer work during the coming seasons.”

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This is It Only Takes E Minute, in which Formula E signs a partnership to keep the coolest safety car in motorsport.

Formula E and BMW have agreed an extension to their partnership which has been in existence since the sport began, with the German manufacturer supplying the official vehicles. That’s the safety and medical car to you and me, and it’s a good looking one. The BMW i is a fully electric car, naturally, and the i8 provides safety car duties whilst the i3 is the smaller medical car.

There are some modifications to the road cars, particularly wireless charging pads. As safety car driver Bruno Correia says: “This system, it’s very easy, we just park the car over the pads and it immediately starts to charge. We have to intervene as quick as possible, imagine me coming out of the car to take the cables off, plug it in.”

The agreement is for a multi-year partnership, with Formula E CEO Alejandro Agag saying: “It’s a legendary brand in the world of sports and in the car industry and soon we will also have them in the pit lane trying to win.”

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Welcome to It Only Takes E Minute, where I’ll introduce you to the members of a brand new supergroup.

In an effort to continually assess the impact on the planet, Formula E founder Alejandro Agag has put together a new global advisory board to consider and provide advice on various subjects including business and media, plus emissions, electric vehicles and sustainability.

The group will be led by Christiana Figueres, who created the Paris climate agreement, and Alain Prost, long time racer and current Formula E team owner, with Agag, Charles Chao of SINA, Gerd Mauser of Jaguar Racing, former F1 team principal Martin Whitmarsh, Marco Parroni of Julius Baer and reigning Formula E champion Lucas di Grassi all also on board.

Prost says: “Being with Formula E since the very beginning I’ve seen first hand how it has grown and developed, not only as a championship but also the impact it’s already having on the road car industry.”

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Following the feedback we received after our last show, we have attempted to rectify the situation by getting the experts in to talk all about the Indy 500. If you’ve never seen any IndyCar racing before, like at least one half of the Sidepodcast pair, then pay attention as Pat and Lukeh guide us all through what to expect over the next couple of days.

From Fernando Alonso’s motivation to his performance so far, we cover the triple crown of motorsport, the accident suffered by Sébastien Bourdais, the teammates lining up to help out of F1 star, as well as Alexander Rossi’s about face with regards to his attitude towards his new favourite sport.

There’s also time to discuss what happens when it rains at Indy, the big bold pre-race spectacle and of course, make a couple of predictions. Our resident experts also promise to come back and debrief the race with us once it’s all over and done with.

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