Formula E became the first major international championship to hold a bespoke test solely for top female drivers at Jarama on Friday.
Seventeen women took to the track in the three-hour run using the cars about to participate in the 2024/25 season that kicks off in Sao Paulo next month.
F1 academy leader Abbi Pulling grabbed the headlines with a fastest lap of 1m30.889s in Norman Nato’s Nissan Gen3 Evo car.
Pulling was 0.3 seconds faster than her old W Series sparring partner Jamie Chadwick and she impressed the Nissan team with her pace, understanding of the Gen3Evo car and consistency over 300kW power as well as her flyers on the 350kW push laps.
It was an experience that Pulling described to The Race as “surpassing my expectations.”
“I knew it was going to be a step up, and it's very fast,” she added.
“It's just a different driving style to what I'm used to and in some aspects, there's a lot more to manage.”
Pulling utilised the experience of Nissan’s race drivers Oliver Rowland and Nato too, saying “they gave me as much insight as they could, especially that it's going to be very heavy [steering].”
This was in light of the softer Hankook tyres and the new steering damper mandated for the new season allied to the extra push of the all-wheel-drive function which is generated via the spec front MGU on the Gen3 Evo machines.
“I don't think I maximised it just because it was super, super heavy but the lads have been struggling on this new compound too. So, I know it's not just me,” Pulling added.
“There's still definitely a gap to find to the drivers that are here all season.
“It's a first test, but I’m very competitive, and I like to try and get as close as possible to them.”
Pulling’s time was 3.4s off the week’s fastest time, set by Jaguar’s Mitch Evans after four solid days of running and several private manufacturer test days in preparation.
In the context of Pulling never having driven a Formula E car before and the fact that the simulation work she carried out was on the initially intended Valencia track, that gap is actually not too shabby at all.
Jamie Chadwick (Jaguar) and Bianca Bustamante (McLaren) were behind Pulling, while also impressing was Toyota Gazoo Racing affiliated driver Miki Koyama in fourth in the new Lola.
She got progressively quicker all afternoon, watched over by former Williams Formula 1 driver Kazuki Nakajima.
Completing the top six were Lena Buhler, Mahindra’s sole representative at the test and former BMW factory driver Beitske Visser, who along with Chadwick was the only other driver in the top six that had previously driven any Formula E car after participating in a test at Diriyah in Saudi Arabia in 2018.
The least experienced driver in the field, Ella Lloyd, impressed in Sam Bird’s McLaren Nissan with seventh best time.
The top 10 was rounded out by Marta Garcia (Porsche) and Maserati MSG pair Carrie Schreiner and Tatiana Calderon.
Andretti drivers Nerea Marti and Chloe Chambers placed 13th and 15th respectively.
“I think in the end, I didn't quite maximise as much as I wanted to, but the experience that I gained has me wanting to come back for more to be able to just build that confidence up even more,” Chambers told The Race.
“This track has some pretty high speed corners in Formula E terms. So, it was definitely a confidence building track.
“And honestly, that comes with laps, so the more laps I did the more confidence I gained.”
The session featured relatively little incident with just a spin for Jessica Edgar in her DS Penske car, although she did post the fastest 300kW lap of the day, and Simona de Silvestro damaged the Kiro Porsche in a suspected kerb strike.
Lilou Wadoux was unable to complete a lap for Jaguar after flying into the test from the Super GT race at Motegi last weekend where she is competing this season in the 300 category in a Ferrari 296 GT3 car.
A team statement explained that Wadoux, who had a seat fitting and a simulator session at the team HQ, had issues with her seat insert and that it was “not as comfortable as she would like”.
Jaguar stated that Wadoux would get another shot of driving the Gen3Evo car “in the future”.
