until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
The new Nissan IM03 Formula E car will be seen for the first time in the upcoming Monaco race after completing final checks during private development testing in Spain on Tuesday.
Nissan was forced to delay the introduction of the newly homologated powertrain it has been testing since last year due to last minute concerns about parts.
It put this down to difficulties with components because of the ongoing disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Ex-Formula E racer Stephane Sarrazin ran for Nissan in Spain earlier today and the team is now set to take the new hardware to Monaco where it will be transferred into the race cars.
Nissan was originally planning to introduce the new tech at the Rome round on the second weekend of April but its global motorsport director Tommaso Volpe said the new car’s debut is now on course for Monaco on May 8.
“We will have the new package at Monaco, yes,” Volpe told The Race.
“Technically, we look at everything. So we have upgraded and optimised both the hardware and the software.
“You don’t have the luxury to say ‘OK, I only look at the hardware’.
“We’re just all so close in performance, all 12 teams more or less, that you need to look for gaps everywhere. So we work 360 degrees on everything so it is optimised.”
Nissan e.dams is currently 11th in the teams’ championship with 38 points from six races. At the same juncture last season the team had accrued 63 points. Of the points earned so far Oliver Rowland has contributed 27 and Sebastien Buemi 11.
Despite the difficult start to the 2021 campaign, Volpe says that the aims and objectives for the season remain the same.
“The objective for us is to be at the top of the championship but unfortunately, we didn’t start as we wanted to,” he said.
“We were hoping for slightly better results even if we knew we had the new car coming later.
“We knew that the first races could have been a little bit more of a challenge, especially not knowing what the competition was doing.
“On one hand we can say if you look at the first race in Rome, that we are actually very fast still with the old car.
“On the other hand, the fact that the new car was delayed, we are taking this into account.
“Having said that the objective for the season is to be at the top, this is not changed.”
