Nissan’s Sacha Fenestraz has told Motorsport Week that racing in the FIA Formula E championship is a teenage ambition that has become a reality.
The French-Argentinian is now in his second full season of Formula E, and is full of enthusiasm about racing in what is one of the fastest-growing sports in the world. “I used to go to Formula E races when it was GEN1 in Buenos Aries, it was a dream to come over here,” he says.
“I’m friends with José Mariá López who was in Formula E and when I was going to see him, I thought it would be awesome to be in this championship.
“Since then, I’m now here and seeing the championship grow since those years, it’s amazing and it has a lot of potential.”
Fenestraz is aware of the ever-growing numbers of fan engagement via social media and global television ratings that Formula E is getting, and his enthusiasm about the sport and its increasing levels of popularity is evident.
“It’s just the beginning – it’s only Season 10 out of unlimited seasons hopefully, so it has potential to keep on growing, the numbers are positive and we can only see those numbers going up.”
Fenestraz arrives in Misano off the back of the inaugural Tokyo E-Prix, the first home race in FE for his Nissan team. Whilst it was a tough weekend for him, team-mate Oliver Rowland made the partisan crowd proud with pole position and second place, narrowly missing-out on the win after dicing for the lead with eventual winner Max Günther. Fenestraz, however disappointed in his own result, remains philosophical about an all-round successful event.
“The event itself was awesome.
“Everything went super-smoothly, no real issues on a new track which can easily happen.
“The whole event was really nice, for us it was our first home race so an important one, a busy one also for us in terms of activities and marketing, it was a very intense weekend, but we managed to pay it off with a good result for Oliver.
“On my side of the garage, it was a bit tricky on the racing aspect, but that’s racing and that can happen.”
Misano is a brand new venue for the Italian round of the championship, replacing the streets of Rome. Fenestraz expects a peloton race due to the nature of the track, and will be longing for another street venue.
“I think it’s going to be definitely a more Portland-style race from last year, where nobody wants to lead and there was a lot of overtakes – we can expect a type of race like that.
“It’s a permanent track, not a city track, which a bit of a shame, because I like the DNA – or the old DNA – of the Championship of just street circuits, so we’re missing that with Misano, but it will be an interesting race for everybody, I think because of the strength of the manufacturers, we’ll see some little differences on that side.”
Over the Tokyo weekend, Nissan became the first Formula E to commit to the sport long-term, signing a declaration to confirm its participation until at least 2030, seeing itself through the upcoming GEN4 era. Fenestraz views such a development to be proof of Nissan’s seriousness of how it approaches the championship, with the hope of success in the very near future.
“It’s very positive – it’s exactly what we were missing in the team in terms of stability, with this, it clearly shows Nissan is committing until 2030.
“It’s not a small thing – it’s big, and for us it’s very positive.
“We’ve moved the team base to Paris, the progression of the team with new people since the start of last season, and I think this is going to help build stability into the racing team, but it’s great for us and I think we will be able to fight for a championship, even before GEN4.”
Nissan is now in its second season of being a powertrain supplier to NEOM McLaren, thus able to share in the success of Sam Bird’s recent victory in São Paulo. Fenestraz recognises the importance and benefits of being a supplier to another team.
“It’s double the data, we gather a lot of information by having four cars with the same powertrain, so for a manufacturer, it’s very positive.
“We can really work as one big team in terms of sharing differences we have, both positive and negative, and this kind of thing can be very helpful as we work in a very transparent way, we share everything.”
Many might only take the negatives out of the fact Fenestraz has only been in the points once so far this year, but it’s worth remembering he is still relatively new to FE, especially compared to a team-mate of vast experience in Rowland. Having the Yorkshireman in the team alongside him brings, in his view, only good things to him.
“It is really great for me to have Ollie onboard.
“Since I knew he was coming to the team I thought it was good for me as he has a lot of experience, and that was I was missing last season with energy-management, racing etc.
“It’s very good, of course his talent is paying-off a lot so far and we know he’s extremely talented and he has a lot of experience in motorsport, so for me, it’s mega, especially with the results he’s having, I can learn from that and move forward in terms of knowledge of the championship – he’s a great team-mate to have.”
