Sacha Fenestraz stayed out of trouble and performed strongly during Sunday’s 2021-22 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship season finale despite only being called up to drive by the Dragon/Penske Autosport team at 6:30am on the morning of the race.
With Antonio Giovinazzi ruled out of the race after the Italian injured his thumb during Saturday’s opening race in Seoul, Dragon needed a replacement driver to race alongside Sérgio Sette Câmara, and they called upon Jaguar TCS Racing’s Fenestraz.
Fenestraz became the second reserve driver from Jaguar’s pool of drivers to take to the track in South Korea after Norman Nato was drafted in to replace the injured Sam Bird, and the French-Argentine driver put up a good showing despite very limited track time in a Formula E car and with no previous knowledge of the Seoul track.
“Honestly, they called me at 6:30am and were like, ‘come quickly’ and I was still like opening my eyes!” Fenestraz is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com. “It was a tricky one, I was racing in Japan last weekend so I didn’t manage to do any simulator work before the race.
“Everything was just in a rush. But about today, it was good. We couldn’t expect much as everyone raced yesterday, and I didn’t drive a Formula E car in a very, very long time apart from the Gen3 shakedown – but shakedowns are generally very few laps and you’re not pushing.
“I didn’t expect much, I know the team had a difficult year on that side of the garage without finishing many races, so I really wanted to just finish the race – also for me just to take experience.
“Also with qualifying, putting the lap together with so little experience is difficult. I had a few little mistakes in the lap which cost me a few tenths.”
Fenestraz, who races in both Super GT and SuperFormula in Japan this year, has been linked with a full-time move to Formula E for season nine, but he admitted there were certainly differences between his current championships compared to his one-off ride with Dragon, especially when it came to the tyres.
The twenty-three-year-old races with Bridgestone tyres in Super GT and with Yokohama tyres in SuperFormula, and getting to grips with Formula E’s Michelin tyres was eye opening for the former Renault Sport Academy driver.
“The safety car came up which kind of helped us to be honest, because I was really struggling with the rear tyres, degradation was massive,” he admitted. “I’m used to Japan and having Bridgestone or Yokohama and a lot of grip and a lot of downforce and this is a whole different thing; it’s very little downforce and very little grip.
“But it makes the car nice, that’s why it makes the battles and the qualifying so interesting and everything, but it’s a very different car to what I’m used to. I was studying more than I ever studied in school! I honestly haven’t studied this much for many years, I was just trying to put all the information on board in my head and try my best.
“But it was a tricky one because as I said, this morning they called me up pretty soon and I was at the track, but had to focus on the pedal set but then also learn the steering.”
