The FIA has issued its explanation for the battery fire that disrupted the Formula E World Championship’s official pre-season test at Valencia last week.
In a statement provided to Racecar Engineering, the global motorsport federation gave the background to the incident, which occurred during checks after Robert Shwartzman’s DS E-Tense FE23 stopped on track.
The fire occurred in a dedicated pit garage where the WAE Technologies battery pack had been taken for inspection by the supplier’s technicians.
The FIA confirmed that, during the manual examination, there was an ‘arc flash’ and sparking that resulted in a localised fire. An arch flash is the product of an electrical current travelling through the air and making contact with the ground or another conductor.
After the Valencia incident, one individual was sent to hospital for precautionary checks and later discharged without treatment.
‘During on-track testing, the automatic battery safety system was triggered in a race car causing the car to stop with the safety light illuminated,’ read the FIA statement.
‘Standard procedures followed, with the driver leaving the car once authorised by the FIA e-Safety Delegate and the rescue team and the car coming back immediately to the quarantine area.
‘Following full safety checks, the car was declared HV [high voltage] safe and proceeded back to the team garage where the battery was removed following further checks and transferred to the garage of the single-supplier of batteries for Formula E cars.
‘Later on, while being manually inspected by the battery single-supplier team, there was an arc flash and some sparking, that resulted in a localised fire. The emergency alarm system located in each of the garages was triggered, enabling the on-track Incident Response Team to act quickly and efficiently to contain the fire and minimise the damage caused.
‘One person was sent to hospital for precautionary checks and discharged without treatment.’
The rest of the opening day’s track activity and the entirety of the second day were called off as a precaution and to allow initial investigations to take place. Testing resumed on the afternoon of the final day after the FIA and WAE deemed that conditions were safe to continue.
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