More than 30,000 tickets have already been sold for London’s Formula E race, Alejandro Agag revealed today.

Speaking at a press event in Battersea Park, the electric racing chief said he expects the raceday crowds to reach capacity.

“Our dream was to end the season in London but it wasn’t easy,” said the charismatic Spaniard this morning, ahead of a mass cycle ride around the roads of Battersea Park that will become a racetrack in just a few days’ time. “It wasn’t easy to find a location to organise this kind of race. There is a lot involved in organising a safe motorsport race. We are regulated by the FIA and the MSA here in the UK. The safety standards are extremely high.”

Trying to avoid disruption to the UK’s capital city was another major factor in selecting the location. Agag continued: “If you close Hyde Park Corner for an hour, the traffic jam extends like a virus, immediately, everywhere – we needed to find something that would suit the conditions. And we did find somewhere. Whoever designed this beautiful park two centuries ago did it with a race track inside. We had to do really very minor modifications to these roads to make it a fascinating race track, a fascinating place to see really good motorsports.”

The track is going to be tremendously challenging for the drivers. Extreme camber will make setting up the cars tough. Ride heights will have to be extended to prevent the cars bottoming out (when the skid plank makes contact with the road, which can prevent the tyres then moving the car in the right direction), while the crowning in the centre of the roads will make choosing the right line for each corner absolutely vital: carry too much speed into a corner slightly off line and the car will snap away from drivers and into the barriers.

Dust and leaves from the park’s lush greenery will present issues for traction and visibility. Fast-changing light conditions will keep drivers on their toes trying to see where they’re going, as they encounter the sharp contrast between the shadows cast by trees and the bright sunshine when the cars escape the overhanging foliage. The long straights and fast bends could make battery temperature and energy management critical.

“I’m already holding my breath about a couple of the corners,” said Jerome d’Ambrosio, the Dragon Racing driver who acted as tour guide for today’s promenade. “It’s a very technical track and I think there are probably two main overtaking points.”

Agag is convinced that siting a temporary track in the park won’t harm the fabric of the public space. “This is the first time in the season that we’re going to race inside a park,” he commented. “And we think that’s a great message. Clean cars and clean mobility, it feels very comfortable in a park, in a green space like this. We’re making every effort to make the park better than when we came and we think that will be the result. Battersea Park will have improvements after the race. We want the race to a positive thing for the park.”

The end goal is a cleaner city, an achievement Formula E’s boss thinks the sport can play a leading role in. “We think our goals and the goals of the Mayor of London and of the authorities such as Wandsworth Council (which has been incredibly helpful in making this happen) are the same: to make our cities cleaner, to have more electric cars. Our goal is that every car in the world is electric. We’ll see how many years it takes but it will happen. Formula E wants to make a contribution – bigger or smaller, we want to make a contribution towards that goal, in terms of technology, in terms of changing the perception [of electric cars].”

With little more than two weeks remaining until the London race, excitement is building and that is reflected in the tickets sales. A sold-out event is looking likely, Agag revealed: “Tickets sales are going through the roof. We’ve probably sold already 30,000 tickets for the race. It looks like it will be sold out in London. That makes us very happy. It means thousands and thousands of people are looking forward to this event. We want to give a great show for the people in London and in the UK.”