Michela Cerruti is one of the forgotten original drivers of Formula E and not just because she was one of only three women that have raced in the 133 E-Prixs held in the championship's 10-year history.
The Italian, now 37, competed in Formula E's first four races in 2014 and 2015 scoring a best result of 12th.
She was replaced in the Trulli team by former Formula 1 driver Vitantonio Liuzzi and headed to TCR racing before starting a family. She’s now an executive in the automotive industry, having last competed in TCR back in 2017.
As Formula E begins a fresh push to not only get female drivers back on its grids but to establish a proper structure for them, Cerruti spoke to The Race about her memories of her time in Formula E and the championship's new strategy.
The brief FE pioneer
2014 was a big year for Michela Cerruti.
A full season of the Auto GP series with F3000 and GP2 champion team Super Nova brought a highlight of a win at Imola and a top six finish in the standings despite missing two rounds.
While Auto GP was not considered a prestige series it was competitive - that season was won by Super GT regular Kimiya Sato - and the cars, modified Lola F3000s, were very quick indeed and often lairy, hairy and a little bit scary.
Through contacts at Super Nova, including team management figures David and John Sears, Cerruti was given the opportunity to join the nascent Trulli FE team in the summer of 2014.
Jarno Trulli and his long-time friend and manager Lucio Cavuto formed the Formula E team earlier in 2014 after Trulli’s F1 career came to an end a few years before.
While Trulli’s heart never seemed to be completely in the Formula E project, Cerruti began her brief journey with optimism and ambition.
“It was a pretty special time, I think for everyone, because it was something absolutely new,” she recalls.
“They were at the avant-garde of motorsport at that time because there were people talking about electric but most people were very sceptical about the success of such a kind of motorsport.
“I have to say that if we look at the scenario now, probably Formula E is the only really successful electric motorsport today, so it was nice to be there at the start in a way.”
The optimism couldn’t last long though as it became clear from an early point that the Trulli team was lost within this new discipline of racing. Even operational assistance from Super Nova couldn’t save it from rapidly assuming backmarker status.
“I was not feeling comfortable, results were not coming and I didn't feel that was the right place for me to be,” said Cerruti, who left the team and was replaced by Liuzzi after the Buenos Aires race in January 2015.
Cerruti's four-race FE stint
Beijing: Qualified: 17th (+3.970s) Finished: 14th (+1 lap)
Putrajaya: Qualified: 15th (+2.078s) Finished: DNF
Punta del Este: Qualified: 16th (+4.798s) Finished: 12th (+19.617s)
Buenos Aires: Qualified: 17th (+2.651s) Finished: DNF
“I’m not blaming people, as it was new for everyone. It was for me, and actually that was a plus. It could have been my future, maybe, but I was also busy with other things.
“In the end I preferred to focus on other things. I was used to racing in GTs a lot, and I've always thought my real future was there. So, when I saw that things were not working it was the best thing for me.”
Why it's harder for women in FE now
There hasn't been a woman racing in Formula E since Simona de Silvestro completed her full season with Andretti in 2015-16, and in that time there hasn't looked like any realistic prospect of another female driver getting a race seat.
De Silvestro, undoubtedly one of the best female circuit racers of the 21st century, scored points on two occasions in a season where Andretti was forced to ditch its own car and go back to the original season one design.
She didn’t set the world alight that season and was comprehensively beaten by team-mate Robin Frijns (who outscored her 45-4), but she was competitive and had the respect of her contemporaries in that campaign.
A decade on from her brief time in the series, Cerruti believes getting a woman into a Formula E race seat now would be much harder given how the championship has developed - even though the profile of women in motorsport has risen in that time.
“The situation is very different,” she says.
“I would say it would be more difficult because official manufacturers, with official race drivers that have stunning palmares (CVs) are available.
“You know, being a woman in motorsport, it can be a disadvantage sometimes. But also, there are moments where everyone is looking for a good woman to drive in high-level championships.
“For sure, now there are much bigger sporting opportunities for women than there were 10 years ago.
“In 2014 the technology was not at the level that is today in Formula E. The car was not as quick as it is today and it was not working as good as it is working today.”
Teams in Formula E have still had women as part of their squads since 2016 when de Silvestro last raced for Andretti. Alice Powell has been a development driver and reserve for Envision and De Silvestro returned to the paddock in 2019 in a role with Porsche.
The quality of the female test will be strong as experienced racers like Abbi Pulling, Jamie Chadwick and Powell share a track with a new generation of talent like Chloe Chambers, Ella Lloyd and Jessica Edgar.
The test will be if Formula E consolidates its initial platform for women after the test and cultivates a genuine arena where further opportunities arise. There will undoubtedly be a commercial element to that too, and while some teams clearly care more than others, if the talent shouts loud enough then those prospects should be allowed to flourish.
Why Cerruti was the original Floersch
Sophia Floersch is expected to take part in the Valencia test next month with Nissan and there is more than a little kinship feeling when transposed with Cerruti’s adventures a decade and more ago.
Floersch has previously been vocal about wanting to perform on a mixed-gender platform rather than race in all-female structures such as W Series and F1 Academy. Cerruti was of a similar disposition throughout her career.
“I would never really have been keen to get into a series just for women, but not because I saw that they were not good enough,” says Cerruti.
“It's just because I liked to race with the men. And I just wanted to race with the best drivers and I guess I prefer to be the last of the best ones than the first of the lowest ones, let's say.
“I think now there is more focus on only-women racing but it would be good to find a woman that is at the level of the best men too.
“It is good that there are initiatives around them but it must not be a media operation only. The objective should be really to find a woman that can race in Formula E, achieving the same results of the best drivers there.”
Cerruti is reserving her opinion and judgement on the Formula E test for the time being, saying that “it depends on the reason why they do it, which is unknown to me” but that “if it is to get women racing again in Formula E, then it's always nice to see something like that".
“It should always be about performance. I think that if one of them can perform properly, and I think that some of them can, it would be very good if someone gives a chance to female drivers to join Formula E again and enjoy what I was able to enjoy.”
