"I don't think it's fair to say it's difficult, but it is very, very different," Hartley said. "I think LMP1 to Formula One was much closer than either of them to Formula E. Obviously that it's electric is one side of it. The electric engine you get used to - you get a throttle which responds to your demands, and you get a certain amount of power to the rear axle - that's quite easy to understand. The difference is that it's quite heavy, you have a tyre that works in a big range of temperatures, so there's a lot of movement from the tyre, very low downforce which makes great racing, and a car that's set up to drive tight, very bumpy, street circuits."

The problem with Diriyah

Diriyah's problem is that it is not raced-on except for during the Formula E meeting, and, understandably for a track situated in a desert country, there is a huge amount of sand and dust on the track to hamper any driver who gets a few inches off-line. As Hartley explained, the Formula E car is a powerful beast to handle at the best of times, and with full power at Diriyah, the difficulty is multiplied.

"That's a big thing - the circuits are very different. They're more extreme than we've seen in other categories, and the car's made for them. The car's extremely challenging to get the most out of, I think all the drivers will tell you you're fighting... you have more power than grip, that's especially clear when you go 250," Hartley said, referring to the kw/h allowance in free practice and qualifying.

"The challenge on the weekend is you go to different power levels. I think adjusting to such a dynamic race day is a big challenge, and that's why we see the experienced guys top at the end of the season, because there's a lot of variables and it's tough." We saw exactly how tough it could get for even proven talents such as Hartley and Müller, when they both had issues throughout the weekend.

Hartley hit the wall in the first free practice session, meaning he missed the second. Qualifying, then, was about getting a safety-first banker lap in. 18th on the grid was followed by 19th in the race. The following day went better, with the New Zealander, in spite of having to start 19th, clawing his way up to two points for ninth in the second race.

Qualifying with extremely limited running in practice would not have been an ideal situation for any driver, and the Dragon driver's explanation of the thinking that goes into timed running illustrates how difficult it must have been. "There's a level of risk and reward. In F1 we do many laps, even in Q1 you sometimes do three or four laps, so you refine everything. Here, I think there's a bit of feeling how it is, maybe you don't want to take too much risk in places, so it pays off later on, don't want to lock the fronts and end up in the wall, there's a little bit of that here. You just get one shot at it."