Montreal Mayor Cancels Formula E Race Due To Growing Financial Concerns

Valerie Plante, the Mayor of Montreal announced this week that the city had decided to cancel the season four finale of the Formula E – all electric racing series. The previous Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre was instrumental in bringing Formula E over to Montreal and invested millions of dollars in the process. Coderre received a lot of flak for this move and many believe that it was one of the reasons why he lost the election to Plante.

The announcement comes as no surprise as Mayor Plante was not a fan of Formula E and found that the race did more financial harm than good to the city. When Plante won the elections in November, many expected her to put a halt to Formula E until the city could reconsider its options for the event. Formula E wasn’t willing to accept a pause to its circuit and as a result the Mayor decided to cancel the event for good.

FIA Formula E Championship (event earlier this year)

In a statement, Mayor Plante said

This is where we draw the line. The Formula E will not be back in Montreal under these conditions. Keeping the event in Montreal would cost taxpayers between $30 and $35 million. My administration is willing to take risks and to promote Montreal, to attract international events, but not without a serious business case

The cancellation of the race and future Formula E races leaves Montreal in an awkward position as the contracts made by the previous administration had the city hosting two more races. Currently it is not known as to what kind of penalty will be enforced by Formula E for the cancellation of these races.

Aside from financial problems revolving around the event, it seemed that the race was also a poor draw in Montreal. Reports show that 20,000 of the 45,000 tickets to the last race were given away by the organizers, and only 5,000 tickets were actually purchased by the public. The race had also caused traffic and logistic problems for Montreal. A survey given to residents revealed that the race had a negative impact on local business as parking problems and street closures caused local businesses to lose customers.

The Montreal race was to be the season four finale for the Formula E racing series. If no replacement for Montreal can be found, the season four finale will shift to New York City, which is scheduled to host a pair of Formula E races in July 2018.