Nissan's Evolution: Building a Team in Formula E

The 2023 Formula E season has brought huge changes up and down the Formula E grid, but not least for Nissan, who took over the edams operation in 2022 and have built a fully manufacturer-led team. With Renault, edams were the dominant team of the Gen1 era, however Gen2 was more frustrating for Nissan overall - a rapid twin-motor powertrain built for the then-new cars was outlawed after one season, losing the team its speed advantage and putting it back in the development race.

With the dawn of the Gen3 rules, Nissan are doing things differently; with McLaren also using the Japanese manufacturer’s powertrains, there is an improved flow of data, as is the case for any manufacturer supplying a second team.

A promising start for Sacha Fenestraz (Simon Galloway, copyright FIA Formula E)

While Nissan did not achieve much in the way of points-paying results in the early part of this Formula E season, the excellent qualifying performances of Norman Nato and Sacha Fenestraz at Monaco showed how the powertrain software updates were bearing fruit. Nissan’s weakness remains race pace - the hardest thing to get right in Formula E, because it relies so much on powertrain efficiency. However, it is arguably easier to make a quick car efficient than the other way round, and so Nato, Fenestraz, and Team Principal Vincent Gaillardot head into the concluding part of the season with every reason for optimism. .

This feature was arranged in association with Nissan’s e-fluids partner, Shell.

Nato, it should not be overlooked, is a race-winner in Formula E, and comes to Nissan with experience of both the Mercedes and Jaguar powertrains, having been a sim and reserve driver for the factory Jaguar team, and prior to that a full-season driver for Venturi in 2021. Therefore, Nato may not have been a ‘name’ driver on joining the team, but he was just the right kind of signing for a team still integrating a lot of new staff, while wrestling with the very different requirements of the Gen3 car.

“Technology-wise they are quite different,” Nato said of the Gen3 compared to the Gen2 car, “because with the Gen3, the regen is something which is quite different compared to Gen2. In the past you only stored energy with the rear axle, and now it is the front and rear axles, and that is something that is impacting the braking side of the car, and makes it much more tricky. And I would say the main thing for us to set up is turn-in braking, because you know in Formula E every time you brake you recover some energy.”

“It makes our life much more difficult than before, already. Before, it was important to be gentle on brakes to find the limit and have all the right settings. It was something really tricky, and it's even more tricky now. With the team we spend, like, at least 60% of the timeframe to maximise the braking efficiency.”

Nato brings experience to the team (Simon Galloway, copyright FIA Formula E)

Fenestraz agreed on braking being the toughest thing to adapt to on the Gen3. “The times I drove it, I found it a lot different to the Gen3, especially on the braking side. We [also] have the front axle where we can regenerate now. Before it was only the rear. We don't have [mechanical] brakes on the rear any more, so we are all full-electric rear brakes. So you know the transition between those two, between the rear and the hydraulic front brakes [has been] quite tricky, especially at the beginning of the season.”

“It was very difficult, very different to the Gen2,” Fenestraz said of his early Gen3 driving experiences. “It was like, one lap the car was doing something, the next lap, the car was doing something else. You know it was quite difficult to be consistent. And then in terms of pure driving, you know it's a car that I feel like you need to fight a lot more compared to the Gen2.”

For the majority of Formula E viewers and observers, the main topic of conversation had been the new, ultra-long-life, Hankook tyres. “It makes life a little bit harder for us as drivers, as we are constantly, you know, fighting the car, and I'm kind of struggling to find the limit of the grip at the moment. There's a lot of things that we’re still learning, but it's like 60-70% of the work is on the brakes, and then just kind of driving skills themselves.”

It sounded like the Gen3 was a demanding beast to drive at racing speeds. Nato agreed, explaining how to get the best out of such a complex car. “It's something which is linked to the new technology because on this car we are not using the [rear] brake disks. So everything is done by the electric [power]. So that's the first thing. And then with this car in general, since the beginning, everything you learned in terms of driving in the past with the Formula Two or Formula One is kind of different, in terms of driving and the way you have to drive the car. And also, like, sometimes it's out of [the driver’s] control - let’s say, if your engineer makes a mistake by one number on the braking side, it can impact completely the braking side of the car..”

“For us, you have to trust your system and you have to trust everything. But if there is something wrong with the system, you can just lose control of the car. So that's why sometimes on TV, when a driver crashes, it's sometimes not a driver mistake. It can happen that, yeah, there was a mistake with the system or something and yeah, then there’s not so much you can do, you're just a passenger. It's still like a new process for everyone. So we’re still learning. We are all trying to find the limit and to push the limit, and sometimes we go over. Sometimes we overthink as well. At this level, where a tenth is really, really important, we are all trying to maximise everything. Sometimes it all works.”

Monaco was an example of a time when, at least in qualifying, it worked for both Nato and Fenestraz, with Nissan’s McLaren customers having, in the hands of Jake Hughes, been arguably most impressive prior to that. Fenestraz has had a debut season to remember, that front row in Monaco being one of a number of standout performances for the French-Argentine, including running at the front in Cape Town. Some would say Fenestraz has had an exemplary rookie season thus far.

(Simon Galloway, copyright FIA Formula E)

“I don't know. I have various opinions on that one, but definitely it has not been a bad startup season. I think in a way, for me, it's a perfect time entering this kind of championship because of course it's a new car, a lot of new tracks, so it's kind of balanced everyone out,” Fenestraz explained. “As a rookie, that’s much better.”

“But it's true that somehow I managed to adapt quite quickly. I think the changes from Gen2 to Gen3, for someone that has been driving Gen2 for a while, it might be a little bit harder to readjust. For me, everything was going to be completely different. So, just as a mindset, I just arrived [thinking] like, you know, I cannot take anything from Gen2 to Gen3 or from Super Formula to Gen3. I just go and just have fun, in a way, and adapt to it. And I think that's what I've been doing and it’s worked out pretty well at the moment, let's say.”

Nato’s wealth of experience is something he continues to try and learn from. “The fact that I've worked with Mercedes, and Jaguar last year, both were great experiences. Even as a reserve driver you still see the way they work, the way the drivers work, they do the debriefing, all these things to set up with the car. But it's more about the organisation and the differences between the teams, because at the end, as I said, it’s like a tenth of a second, and yet it's huge. It's still like a long process, a new process, the first year for Nissan as a Formula E team.”

Of course, being a Formula E driver might not come with the crushing volume of media work that F1 does, but it still has its dull, quotidian moments. “We generally spend two days, or maybe I think for one of the races we spent two and a half days on the sim,” said Fenestraz. “So I'd say it's not the most fun thing, because you know you're closed up in a dark room, and hours and hours turning in circles in a way. So it's very tiring, but it's good for me as a rookie in this championship. Monaco I knew, but Berlin, for example, I didn’t.”

While Nissan has been deep in the midfield for much of the season, there is optimism following Monaco (Simon Galloway, copyright FIA Formula E)

Shell continues to bring invaluable assistance to Nissan’s push for wins and top honours, as Fenestraz explained. “The partnership with Shell on the fluids is helping us a lot. We're bringing a lot of feedback to them and they're bringing a lot of updates in terms of the fluid keeping our powertrain cool, for example in Jakarta where there is always very, very hot conditions. With our e-fluids and the help that they're giving us, it’s crucial, because everything is so close, it's so tight. We saw in Sao Paulo it was thousands of seconds. So our partnership on e-fluids and the development we've been doing together has helped us to gain those extra thousands of a second that, in this kind of championship, makes a huge difference.”

Team Principal Vincent Gaillardot, the third part of Nissan’s French-flavoured makeover for 2023, spoke of the extent of the change behind the scenes. While the cars’ liveries may maintain a similar corporate look to their Gen2 predecessors, albeit flavoured with sakura graphics this time around, the shift was more pronounced behind the scenes. “It's a different [kind of] organisation,” Gaillardot said, “to adjust to becoming a manufacturer. So it's much more integrated, and this is what we were looking for when we did the organisation of the team.”

Although McLaren have, at times, shown up Nissan for speed in qualifying and races, Gaillardot acknowledged the advantages of having four cars running a powertrain. “I think from my past experience from different series and obviously as something we've discussed within here since day one, we do feel that having a customer team is valuable, knowing the technical rules and sporting rules we have in place in Formula E. As you can see, nearly every manufacturer has got a customer team because although it's not quite double the amount of information, for sure it gives you capability to have more track days.”

“You’re learning much more quickly. With the two-year homologation, you need to make sure that you collect as quickly as possible information, to be able to learn for the in season for sure development as well for the next development and this is key. Having McLaren, the winning team from the previous season [as Mercedes], is a challenge for us - a good challenge, so I think it's definitely of huge value for the project.”

The Gen3 project was a significant challenge for teams and drivers on the way into the season, with limited testing availability, supply problems, and then technical issues causing crashes and setbacks for some teams in the Valencia test last October. “As you know the whole Gen3 project was late, it had several difficulties. We are still in the development process for the current homologation, so Season Nine-10, and we still have to do some work. So it's an ongoing process, and for this reason, Season Nine is a little bit… a special one somehow. We already have a lot of learning which we have implemented as an input for the next development for Season 11.”

Gaillardot was also warm about Nissan’s alliance with Shell, and its value to the team going forward, on several fronts. “There is the cooling, things like that, which require a specific product which would have a value on our project in terms of overall efficiency, as that is our main focus. So that’s one thing, and obviously there is also the gearbox - but again, we are looking so closely at efficiency, and we have to work closely together. On, for example, gear profile, gear sizing and the product, you have to make sure you find the best compromise. This is where it's so important to ‘close the loop’ we share and to refine the best product. For overall efficiency, it's not efficiency on one side and efficiency on the other side. It's working together to find the best compromise.”

Following up on Fenestraz’s remark that the simulator work was arduous but necessary, Gaillardot reiterated its importance. “It’s a new team, a new adventure. So we have to build the whole relationship and so far due to the lack of experience of Sacha in Formula E, we have to balance very well in development the number of days between the two drivers. And so it is definitely something we have to take care of - to do a bit bit more driver simulator work to gain experience. So that's why, even for development, we spend a lot of time at the initial phase of the project in the driver simulator.”

Nato concluded the interview by explaining how everyone at Nissan understood patience was needed in order to extract the car’s optimum performance. “And with two new drivers, a lot of new members of the team, 60% of the team, nearly, is new, and you know, it's like a football team. You can take Messi for example, in football, when he arrived at PSG, the guy at the beginning, he needed some time to adjust to the team, to adjust to the city, to basically to put everything together, the team with his teammates and the coach.

It's pretty much the same for us. It's not just about driving the car fast and it's not that easy. So that's why for this kind of thing I'm trying to use my experience and still learn new things every year.”

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