Tokyo, LA, but no NASCAR track – 2024 Formula E calendar latest

Potential first ever races in Tokyo and Los Angeles remain the key to the 2023-24 Formula E season as a provisional calendar gets completed in the coming weeks ahead of the FIA world motorsport council next month.

TOKYO GETTING CLOSER

The possibility of racing in Tokyo, while not completed, is “closer than ever” according to Formula E chief championship officer and co-founder, Alberto Longo.

The Race understands that senior members of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government were guests of Formula E at last weekend’s Monaco E-Prix, with parties attempting to thrash out a deal for the city to host a race next spring.

The current favourite location to host a race would be the Tokyo Big Sight area which comes under the jurisdiction of TMG. This encompasses the Tokyo International Exhibition Centre. It is located in the Ariake Minami district of Tokyo Waterfront City on Tokyo Bay.

It is expected that a final decision on a deal will come at the end of June. This might be too late to be included on the draft calendar that is submitted to the FIA WMSC, so it could be reflected initially as a ‘to be confirmed’ event.

“There has always been interest from the Tokyo government to host a Formula E event and from Formula E to have a race there,” said Longo.

“The Tokyo Marathon took eight years to be approved, and the marathon has less impact on the neighbourhood than what we do, so definitely it’s hard to get there.

“I would say that we’re closer than ever, and Tokyo is definitely one of the candidate cities that we have and potentially could be added in the short term to the calendar.”

LOS ANGELES FOR US ROUND?

Formula E city development staff are also in negotiations with Los Angeles about a possible race in the Californian city. The Race can reveal that one option is a potential race in and around one of the city’s sports stadiums.

Longo would not be drawn on specifics of a ‘stadium race’ in Los Angeles but did say that “actually the gate to enter the stadium, they are not wide enough to make it happen” in the same fashion that Formula E’s Seoul event raced inside and outside the 1988 Olympic Games venue.

“In principle it is really good because those stadiums in the US are right at the centre of the cities, which is our core, what we want to do,” he added.

“They have massive parking lots around them, so you can actually do a fantastic event in a venue that has a lot of options – from the design of the track to the amount of grandstands that you can have on top of the one that you have inside the stadium.

“So, it’s definitely something that we’re looking at and we have been looking at since the beginning, but most of the time they have been rejected because of the fact that we cannot get into the stadium as the gates are not wide enough.”

NASCAR’S NEW STREET TRACK REJECTED – FOR NOW

Longo also confirmed that informal talks had also taken place with the Chicago street track which will be…