Sacha Fenestraz Believes Jakarta Showed Nissan’s ‘Strengths and Weaknesses’

Sacha Fenestraz ended the Jakarta E-Prix double-header last weekend on a real high, with the Frenchman having matched his best result in the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

Whilst the weekend ended well for the rookie, it started in disappointing fashion. Round ten in Jakarta was a bit of a nightmare for the Nissan Formula E Team driver, as he qualified twelfth and finished nineteenth. Round eleven on Sunday was significantly better though, with Nissan having made some changes overnight. Fenestraz was able to make it into the duels ahead of Sunday’s race, where he secured seventh on the grid.

The rookie made an excellent start to the race and slotted into fourth, where he remained until the chequered flag was flown. Fenestraz wasn’t quite able to overtake Mitch Evans for third, meaning his search for a maiden Formula E rostrum continues. Nevertheless, it was a good recovery by the Nissan driver, who’s now thirteenth in the Drivers’ Championship.

Fenestraz was pleased with Sunday’s “positive race” and believes the weekend showed the team’s “strengths and weaknesses”, helping them identify where to improve.

“This weekend was a good way to see our strengths and weaknesses as a team. Today was a very positive race, it was great for the crew to reward their hard work over the last few months. Yesterday was quite frustrating, but we came back strongly and both cars had very good pace. Norman did a superb job to come from P12 on the grid to P5 at the finish and I’m really happy that we both took a strong result.

“The heat was definitely a challenge, but the humidity was the most difficult. However, we pushed through as a team to score some really good points. I’m now looking forward to Portland, it’s a brand-new track for all of us so it should be an interesting one!”

“We’re not far off the leading teams” – Norman Nato

Norman Nato‘s weekend was actually very similar to Fenestraz’s, in that he struggled on Saturday but thrived on Sunday. The French driver qualified in a disappointing seventeenth on Saturday, but he was at least able to make five places during the race to finish twelfth.

Sunday though, was significantly better, as he qualified higher up the grid. Nato started the second race of the weekend from twelfth and made seven places to finish fifth, securing a solid four-five for Nissan. Nato’s fifth-place finish secured the team’s best result of the season, filling them with optimism.

Nato was delighted with Sunday’s “really positive” performance and was glad to see the car have “strong pace”, demonstrating that the leading sides aren’t too far away.

“Today was really positive. We changed the setup, because yesterday we weren’t so competitive and it worked for us. We managed to put it all together in the race and react from the frustration of Saturday to get a great result for both cars.

“We’ll now look to analyze this one to see what we can do to continue improving for Portland. We had strong pace throughout today’s event, so we have to aim to score big points for the rest of the season. We’re not far off the leading teams based on this performance, and we have five races left to prove what we can do this year.”