Photo: Nissan

Formula E’s annual rookie-only practice session takes place at this weekend’s Miami E-Prix, and a group of junior single-seater stars will be taking part.

The most high-profile of that group is 22-year-old Dennis Hauger, the IndyCar-bound reigning Indy Nxt champion. He will drive for Andretti Global, the team he joined last year and dominated Indy Nxt with.

In 2024, the Norwegian drove for Porsche in FE’s rookie test which took place in Berlin.

Lola Yamaha Abt is calling on the services of Hugh Barter again. He drove for Maserati in FE’s rookie test in 2023, then for the Abt-operated Lola Yamaha team in 2025. Barter was 19th in the 2023 FIA Formula 3 Championship, fifth in Indian Formula 4’s 2024 season then won nine races in the Ultimate Cup Series’ Formula Cup for FRegional cars last year but came fourth in the standings after missing two rounds.

Having joined Barter in Abt’s garage at the 2025 rookie test, Alessandro Giusti joins Jaguar for the 2026 rookie practice session. The Williams junior was 10th in the 2025 FIA F3 Championship as rookie with MP Motorsport, and will stay with the team for a sophomore campaign.

DS Penske is one of the few FE teams with their own driver development programme, and its protege Nikita Bedrin gets another call-up after contesting the 2025 rookie test. He primarily competed in FRegional from 2023 to ’25, but made an F3 cameo and will race in GB3 this year.

Nissan will run two familiar faces in Miami, Gabriele Mini and Abbi Pulling, who joined Nissan thanks to the Japanese manufacturer Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance.

Two years ago, when both were juniors of the Renault-owned Alpine Formula 1 team, they got their first FE mileage with Nissan. Mini did the rookie test, while Pulling drove in the women’s test which was a day of FE’s pre-season testing.

Last June she became Nissan’s rookie test and simulator driver since June 2025 in a multi-year deal, and therefore drove in the rookie and women’s tests. Mini was fastest in the 2025 rookie test, and did the rookie practice session in Jeddah.

Mini is still an Alpine junior and will race for MP in Formula 2 in 2026, having come 13th in the championship as a rookie with Prema last year. Pulling is embarking on a second season in GB3 with Rodin Motorsport, hoping to improve on 10th in the 2025 standings. She was fourth in the FRegional-spec and all-female W Series back in 2022.

FE’s junior single-seater contingent in Miami is completed by Chloe Chambers at Mahindra. She has contested the past two women’s tests, driving for Andretti in 2024 and then Mahindra in 2025, and has spent the last two years as a Campos Racing driver in the all-female and F4-spec F1 Academy series.

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Photo: Jaguar Racing

Jaguar has announced that reigning FIA Formula 3 champion Leonardo Fornaroli will drive one of its cars in next week’s Formula E rookie test in Berlin.

The 20-year-old Italian ended a winless streak in single-seaters of over four years last weekend by finishing first in Formula 2’s sprint race at Silverstone, and with a sixth place the next day he left the track fourth in the standings.

Fornaroli’s rookie F2 season has featured four other podium finishes and two pole positions already, while his title-winning FIA F3 campaign was built upon seven podium finishes and he claimed three podiums in the championship as a rookie in 2023.

The FE test will mark Fornaroli’s first time working with a team at single-seaters’ top level, since he is yet to be picked up by a driver development programme.

European Le Mans Series racer Jamie Chadwick, a race-winner in Indy Nxt last year, will drive Jaguar’s other car in Berlin. She drove for Jaguar in FE’s rookie test in 2020, in pre-season testing last year and then in the Jeddah E-Prix’s rookie practice session this February.

The entry list for the July 14 is completed by Hugh Barter and Alessandro Giusti at Lola Yamaha Abt.

Barter, 19, was runner-up in the French and Spanish Formula 4 championships in 2022, then leapt up to FIA F3 and came 19th in the 2023 standings.

For 2024 he stepped back down to F4, winning three of five races he entered in the Indian championship and coming fifth in the standings, and now he is racing Formula Regional cars in Ultimate Cup Series’ Formula Cup. At the halfway point of the season he has won seven out of nine races and is the points leader.

Giusti beat Barter to the 2022 French F4 title, then won five races across two FRegional European Championship campaigns. This year he stepped up to FIA F3, and sits eighth in the standings with two podiums.

The post Jaguar chooses FIA F3 champion Leonardo Fornaroli for FE rookie test appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Jaguar Racing

Formula E’s rookie practice session at next weekend’s Jeddah E-Prix has attracted more young drivers.

Already announced as getting call-ups were Mahindra’s reserve driver Kush Maini and Super Formula-bound Zak O’Sullivan at Envision Racing, and three more names have now been confirmed.

Jamie Chadwick will drive for Jaguar, Gabriele Mini will get in Nissan’s car and Theo Pourchaire will be at the wheel for Maserati.

It marks the continuation of a long partnership for Chadwick, since she drove for Jaguar in FE’s rookie test in 2020 and then again in pre-season testing last November.

The three-time W Series champion had aimed to race at single-seaters’ top level this year, but was unable to find a seat in IndyCar after a race-winning sophomore Indy Nxt campaign in 2024, left Formula 1 team Williams’ driver development programme after six years and is instead is switching to sportscars in the European Le Mans Series.

2023 Formula 2 champion Pourchaire did development work on FE’s Gen3 car back in 2022, and is now Peugeot’s test and development driver in the World Endurance Championship where it competes in the top Hypercar class.

He had previously been on Formula 1 team Sauber’s books for six years, first as a junior and then as reserve driver for two seasons. Although he never raced in F1, he did contest the 2024 Super Formula season opener and claimed a top-10 finish from six races with McLaren in IndyCar.

Alpine junior Mini drove for Nissan, a sister brand, in FE’s rookie test last year in the middle of an FIA Formula 3 Championship campaign in which he missed out on the title in the final race.

The Nicolas Todt protege will be stepping up to F2 this year with Prema, having already made his debut with the team in Baku last season. His cameo appearance began with him qualifying eighth, and he made the podium in the sprint race.

The post Chadwick, Mini and Pourchaire to drive in FE’s rookie practice session appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: F1 Academy

Nissan will run Alpine juniors Sophia Floersch and Abbi Pulling in Formula E pre-season testing next week.

The test takes place at Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit on November 4-7, and FE has decided that in a session on the final day teams will be required to have a woman in one of their cars.

The majority of teams have chosen two, including Nissan which is part of the same automotive group as Alpine.

Floersch has been racing in Formula 3 since 2018, and her best result in that time has been a seventh place achieved in the FIA F3 Championship’s feature race at Spa-Francorchamps last year. She came 29th in the standings this season.

She has experience of more powerful machinery from time spent in sportscar racing, having come 18th in the DTM and 13th in the World Endurance Championship’s LMP2 class three years ago. Floersch also has two European Le Mans Series podiums, and on Monday she took part in her first Indy Nxt test with HMD Motorsports.

Pulling reached Formula Regional earlier in her single-seater career, making the podium three times in the all-female W Series across 2021 and ’22.

Either side of that she has raced in Formula 4, winning a race en route to seventh in the British championship this year as a part-time entrant and also leading the 2024 season of the all-female F1 Academy series with seven victories.

Indy Nxt race-winner Jamie Chadwick will test for Jaguar, as she previously did in a 2020 rookie test. The three-time W Series champion is looking towards IndyCar for 2024 having finished seventh in her second season in Indy Nxt this year with Andretti, and will partner Ferrari-contracted sportscar racer Lilou Wadoux at Jaguar.

DS Penske will run Pulling’s fellow F4 racer Jessica Edgar in FE testing along with former W Series frontrunner Beitske Visser. Edgar claimed a podium in GB4 two years ago, and came eighth in F1 Academy last year with one win. She is currently 10th in the 2024 standings.

Lola Yamaha Abt has called up Miki Koyama, who moved on from single-seater racing this year. She was a Honda junior when racing in Japanese F4, spent two seasons racing in W Series and also appeared in FRegional Asian Championship events before a breakthrough FRegional Japanese Championship campaign in 2022 with Toyota backing. She won the title against limited opposition, claiming seven race victories along the way, and moved into sportscars via Super GT’s GT300 class last year.

She did make one single-seater outing in 2023, contesting the F4 races that supported the Macau Grand Prix.

Lena Buhler, who finished second in F1 Academy last year, will test for Mahindra. She returned to Formula Regional Europe this year with ART Grand Prix but ended her campaign early with four rounds to go with a best finish of 22nd.

Reigning F1 Academy champion Marta Garcia and other drivers from the series were among those previously announced for the test.

Valencia Formula E women’s test line-up
Jaguar: Jamie Chadwick / Lilou Wadoux
Porsche: Marta Garcia / Gabriela Jilkova
DS Penske: Jessica Edgar / Beitske Visser
Nissan: Sophia Floersch / Abbi Pulling
Andretti: Chloe Chambers / Nerea Marti
Envision: Alisha Palmowski / Alice Powell
McLaren: Bianca Bustamante / Ella Lloyd
Maserati: Tatiana Calderon / Carrie Schreiner
Lola Yamaha Abt: Miki Koyama
Mahindra: Lena Buhler
Kiro Race Co: Simona de Silvestro

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Enzo Fittipaldi will drive for Jaguar in next week’s Formula E rookie test in Berlin.

The 22-year-old is the fifth Formula 2 driver to be picked to take part in the test on May 13, after Dennis Hauger (Porsche), Kush Maini (Mahindra), Jak Crawford and Zane Maloney (both Andretti Global).

He is the most experienced of the quintet in F2 terms, but is totally new to FE and Jaguar.

“This will be my first time driving a FE race car and I am really looking forward to the opportunity,” said Fittipaldi.

“I’ve spent some time in the simulator at the team’s headquarters in Kidlington to give myself the best chance to have a successful test in Berlin. The rookie test is a great opportunity for young drivers to try an all-electric motorsport category and I can’t wait to get some experience.”

Fittipaldi made his F2 debut in 2021, coming 20th in the standings after contending three rounds. His first full season resulted in six podiums and eighth in the standings, and last year a maiden win and an improved scoring rate meant he rose one position in the championship. Three rounds into this season he sits sixth in the points with a win and a third place.

The Van Amersfoort Racing driver spoke to Formula Scout during F2 in-season testing, saying he “feel[s] really good in the team”.

“With me and the feedback I give, I just feel like the chemistry is good this year. So I’m excited to see what we can do until the end of the season.”

Fittipaldi is “trying to help them with that [learning] process” since F2 has a new car this year and VAR is only in its third season in the championship while “a lot of teams here have been in GP2, F2 for a really long time”.

“At the same time we’re here to win races and fight for a championship,” he stated.

One aspect he feels he is benefiting from this year is VAR being the third team he has raced for in F2, as “each team has their own characteristics” and “you learn a lot going from one team to another because you can see how different it is”. He calls working with “a lot of different race engineers and team-mates” a “good experience” and has finetuned his event preparations as his experience has grown.

“I feel like for every race weekend I’m arriving well prepared. I have all my notes from the last two years, which obviously helps. I think it’s helpful to take notes [of] all this because at the end you get very little driving. You go to a race weekend, you have [45] minutes in free practice. So having the experience from the year before, knowing where you have to brake at turn one, turn four, it makes a difference. These little things make a difference.”

He will not be able to rely on any such familiarity of the little things on his FE test debut.

The post Jaguar calls up F2 race-winner Enzo Fittipaldi for FE rookie test appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Roger Gascoigne

To celebrate Formula Scout’s 10th anniversary, founder Peter Allen looks back a decade further to one of his earliest junior single-seater memories.

Before Formula 2 there was GP2, and before GP2 there was Formula 3000. And in the year 2000, it was F3000 that first got this writer hooked on single-seater racing below Formula 1 – thanks to highlights that went out on ITV on weekends when there wasn’t a grand prix on.

I remember being captivated by that year’s title fight between Bruno Junqueira and Nicolas Minassian, seemingly convinced that one or both would end up in F1. This seven-year-old was presumably unaware they were relative series veterans compared to the two rookies that finished the season in third and fourth: Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso.

With his win in the final race of the season at Spa-Francorchamps a few weeks after his 19th birthday, in only his second year of car racing, Alonso would be the youngest winner in F1’s primary feeder series until Lando Norris took his first and only F2 win in 2018, and he propelled himself into an F1 drive with Minardi. As for Junqueira – already passed over for Jenson Button’s Williams seat the previous winter – and Minassian, they would have to make do with rides in the United States.

The driver who finished fifth that year was rather overlooked, but he would change that in 2001. Justin Wilson had signalled his promise when he became the first 16-year-old to win a car race in Britain when he took victory on his debut in the Formula Vauxhall Junior winter series, but was unable to kick on in the following years. Jackie Stewart, whose son Paul ran Wilson’s team, advised that his 6ft 4in (1.93m) frame would be better suited to racing touring cars.

Undeterred, Wilson was to find some rather more encouraging support from another ex-F1 driver when he signed up for the new low-cost Formula Palmer Audi series in 1998 and won the championship’s prize of a fully-funded drive in F3000. Series founder Jonathan Palmer was impressed and took his backing a step further by becoming Wilson’s manager.

Driving for Astromega in 1999, Wilson scored a point by finishing sixth in his first race at Imola, which was no mean feat given the leap in car performance. Although he only scored one further point over the remaining rounds, he earned credit as one of only seven drivers to qualify for every race, at a time when over 40 drivers had just half an hour to secure one of 26 grid spots.

That earned the attention of Nordic Racing – a British team run by father and son Derek and Chris Mower – for 2000, when Wilson finished third at Silverstone and second in Austria. Now 22, he stayed on with the team for 2001 but this didn’t necessarily make him one of the title favourites. For one thing, Nordic was only the third most-fancied F3000 operation in its home county of Norfolk.

David Sears’ Super Nova Racing had been the team to beat in the 1990s, and also had a satellite operation in the Petrobras Junior Team – headed up by Paul Jackson, who went on to found iSport International when F3000 became GP2. Junqueira had won the 2000 title driving for Petrobras against Super Nova’s Minassian.

Moving over to Super Nova for his second season in F3000, Webber was the obvious title favourite. Also hotly-tipped was Petrobras rookie Antonio Pizzonia, fresh from blitzing the British scene with back-to-back titles in FVauxhall Junior, Formula Renault and Formula 3.

Nordic meanwhile hadn’t won an F3000 race since 1995. What it did have was new title sponsorship from Coca-Cola, courtesy of its central European division which welcomed the arrival of Wilson’s new team-mate Tomas Enge, a proven race-winner in F3000 with the now-defunct McLaren junior team West Competition.

The 2001 season began with the first ever championship round to be held outside of Europe, at Brazil’s Interlagos circuit. It was easy to see why: In contrast to now, the nation was incredibly well-represented in the European junior ranks with a whole generation of drivers inspired to race by the heroics of Ayrton Senna and often carrying big-money sponsorship to match. In qualifying, the locals absolutely dominated, locking out the front two rows.

Photo: Ron McQueeney

On pole wasn’t Pizzonia, who rounded out the quartet in fourth, nor his team-mate and Italian F3000 champion Ricardo Sperafico who was second. Nor was it Sperafico’s twin brother Rodrigo who claimed third after a late deal to join Coloni, nor Webber’s team-mate Mario Haberfeld, who had to make do with ninth. Instead it was future Ferrari GT star Jaime Melo with returning team Durango who made the most of his circuit experience from three seasons racing in his domestic F3 series.

Giorgio Pantano, the German F3 champion and highly-rated since karts, managed an impressive sixth for Astromega, with Wilson lining up seventh directly behind team-mate Enge. Webber meanwhile was only 10th after spinning.

Undaunted by the huge Brazilian GP crowds, Melo got away well from pole position, but Ricardo Sperafico was slow away and almost rear-ended by team-mate Pizzonia. He then got tagged by Pantano’s front wing on the apex of the first corner, causing him to crash into the barriers on the outside of turn two. That brought out the safety car boards, for which Melo slowed abruptly on the approach to Juncao, while Pizzonia, the other Sperafico and Enge all went charging past him.

That led Durango boss Ivone Pinton to protest to race director Charlie Whiting, but Melo would soon lose another place when Wilson passed him on the restart. Further down the order, the two Red Bull Junior Team cars of Patrick Friesacher and Antonio Garcia collided, taking both out of the race and no doubt earning them an earful from their team boss Helmut Marko.

Pizzonia led comfortably on his F3000 debut but, after some deliberation, received a 10-second stop-go penalty for his pass on Melo, as did Enge and Rodrigo Sperafico. That gave Wilson a clear track which he used to pull away from Melo en route to his maiden win. His only scare came right after the finish line when, in a combination of excitement and surprise at seeing yellow flags on the approach at the first corner, he spun and only narrowly kept his car away from the pitwall. Behind him, Webber had pressured Melo into a mistake and got by for second place, only to later be penalised for passing before the start-finish line at the restart. That relegated him just out of the points and meant Wilson headed back to Europe with a healthy early advantage over all of his expected rivals.

Webber struck back in round two at Imola, leading from pole position in what was a far more processional affair at the front. Squeezed onto the grass at the start as he tried to get past Webber, Darren Manning took second place for Christian Horner’s Arden team. Having hoped to fight for the title himself, Manning wouldn’t make the podium again all season, but later went on to precede fellow Yorkshireman Wilson’s underdog performances in IndyCar with a few of his own. While Enge was third and Pizzonia fourth, Wilson had to make do with a solitary point in sixth behind Friesacher.

Race three of the season at Barcelona would also be settled at the first corner. The good news for Wilson was that he was on pole for the first time, leading Enge in a Nordic one-two. But after an initially good start, a bad gear change cost Wilson on the run to the first corner and Enge edged ahead, before Bas Leinders stole second.

Third was still a positive result for Wilson relative to Webber, who qualified 11th after a mid-session crash and was unable to break into the points after leaping to seventh on lap one. Indeed, it was Enge who was now Wilson’s closest title rival, just one point adrift, and the pair enhanced their relationship a few days later by sharing a Coca-Cola-backed Porsche in an FIA GT race at Magny-Cours.

It was the two Nordic drivers and KTR’s interloper Leinders who came to the fore again at the A1 Ring, even though none of them made the grid’s front row. On his and the Red Bull team’s home track, Friesacher lost it under braking for the first corner and took out poleman Sebastien Bourdais, additionally triggering a midfield pile-up that accounted for Webber and seven others.

Leinders escaped with the lead, but succumbed to Wilson on the restart. Perhaps surprisingly, Wilson couldn’t simply pull away and instead spent the rest of the race under pressure from Leinders, who did get back down his inside at one point only for Wilson to out-drag him once again. Less than a second covered Wilson and third-placed Enge at the finish, but the points gap between them was up to seven.

Webber reignited his title hopes with the first of his three career wins around the streets of Monaco. Both he and Wilson rose to the occasion and were fairly closely matched throughout. Their weekends could have come undone at the first corner when third-placed Manning couldn’t get stopped and nerfed the rear of Wilson, but the main damage done was to Manning’s own front wing. Wilson was just 0.893s behind Webber at the finish.

Drafted back in to F3000 for a one-off outing by the Prost team, for whom he was F1 test driver at the time, Stephane Sarrazin completed the podium ahead of compatriot Bourdais. After crashing in qualifying, Enge was only seventh, denied a point by surprise Red Bull recall Ricardo Mauricio, but he took his chance to rebound next time out at the Nurburgring, when he drew level with Wilson and Webber on two wins from the opening six races. This was even more straightforward than his Barcelona victory as this time he led from pole. Webber was second, and Wilson missed out on points for the first time when a sheared brake disc bell while in eighth place sent him into a spin and ultimately retirement.

Enge started from pole again at Magny-Cours – this time by a massive 0.573s. But, just as Wilson did at Barcelona, he fluffed his shift from first to second gear after the lights went out. This time Webber was in a position to pounce, and he turned that opportunity into a commanding win. A pre-race setup change caused Enge to drop back with heavy tyre wear into the clutches of Wilson, who dived past for second place on the last lap to ensure he held onto the standings lead by a point over Webber.

Nordic’s drivers had appeared friends up until now but tensions showed at Silverstone. Enge upstaged Wilson in qualifying, outpacing the home favourite by 0.373s to take his third consecutive pole, and led a Nordic one-two in the early laps.

Wilson looked to be playing the long game but was given an opportunity when Enge erred at Becketts and was slow onto the Hangar Straight. Wilson got on Enge’s outside into Stowe but found himself run into the gravel trap on the exit. He rejoined in third behind Sebastien Bourdais and raised a hand in protest.

Justin Wilson’s career stats

Halfway through, not unusually for Silverstone, rain showers began to blow in. First onto the scene whenever the track got more slippery, Enge went off at Copse, dropping himself down to third. Bourdais, who was able to stick with the Nordic pair and leave Webber behind at the start, was now in the lead and duly claimed his maiden F3000 win for DAMS. And while Wilson took second, Enge fell to fifth – behind Pizzonia and Webber – after losing power out of the final corner on the last lap.

That was Pizzonia’s first F3000 podium and he followed it two weeks later with a maiden victory at Hockenheim in an entertaining final race on the flat-out old layout. Team-mate Ricardo Sperafico looked far more likely to be the one breaking his duck after claiming pole, but he was hounded on the first lap by the Nordic pair behind him and Wilson snatched the lead on the way into the stadium section. From sixth on the grid, Pizzonia then stormed around the outside of Sperafico in the Sachs Curve, and he aggressively forced his way by Wilson on lap three.

Wilson could be satisfied with a third successive second place finish, after Enge spun trying to set up a pass through turn one, then ran through the gravel trying to take third back from Sperafico later on and ended up fifth once more. Webber failed to score at all after tangling with Manning on the first lap, rueing a damaged damper that left him seventh on the grid.

Hockenheim set the tone for the end of the season. At the Hungaroring, Wilson took pole by 0.659s over Webber and was untroubled on his way to his third win of the year. While Mauricio took a surprise second to justify his recall by Marko, Enge and Webber did battle over third place until 13 laps to go. Then, Enge ran wide into the final corner and hit Webber’s sidepod when he tried to shut the door – earning him a stop-go penalty that dumped him out of the points and ending his title hopes for good. Webber continued and set after Mauricio, only to spin into retirement on worn tyres.

Wilson now led Webber by 20 points with a maximum 20 available from the final two rounds, and thus went to Spa needing just one point to seal the title. In the end, it was after another second place that Wilson could celebrate in Belgium. But the title was already decided on lap two by another Webber retirement, this time a far more spectacular off at Raidillon following a safety car start in mildly damp conditions. Petrobras was running one-two after dominating qualifying, but Pizzonia spun out of second trying to warm his tyres behind the safety car, leaving Sperafico to get his first win.

2001 Int. F3000 standings

With Mauricio on the podium again, Enge finished fourth in what would be his final F3000 race of the season. Come Monza he was an F1 driver for Prost: the opportunity came about after Luciano Burti was injured in a big crash at Spa, but the Coca-Cola money was a sweetener for a team that ultimately lasted just three more races before folding. Enge would return to F3000 for 2002 with Arden – notably being stripped of that year’s crown for failing a drugs test.

Wilson meanwhile ended the 2001 season with a sixth second place from 12 races. His consistent season allowed him to break Juan Pablo Montoya’s series points record and with a record  gap to second place too, as Webber crashed out for the fourth race in a row – colliding with former Sauber F1 driver Norberto Fontana in a remarkably chaotic start to the race. Webber had already been sent to the back of the grid as one of several to stall across two aborted starts. This after heavy rain and winds on Friday led qualifying to be run just before the race.

When it did get going, pole-sitting Pizzonia forced a fast-starting Pantano onto the grass to keep the lead. Pantano’s late-season team-mate Enrico Toccacelo then triggered the first-corner melee after braking too late and cutting to the inside. Despite his speed, Pantano had scored just two points all season up to now but was in inspired form at home, coming back from fifth to take victory – replicating Alonso’s Spa win from Astromega a year earlier – after Pizzonia was penalised for his opening-lap swipe.

For Wilson and Webber, despite the very different ways their seasons ended, the focus now was the same: finding a way onto the F1 grid for 2002. For Webber, the odds had always seemed better after Benetton boss Flavio Briatore took a liking to both he and Alonso during their strong rookie F3000 seasons in 2000 and made Webber his team’s test driver. After impressing with Minardi, Alonso was moved to the test driver role at the renamed Renault squad for 2002, but Briatore wanted Webber on the grid. The chance came with Minardi through Australian owner Paul Stoddart, who had given Webber his first F3000 chance with his own European Racing team. Webber repaid his faith with a dream fifth place on debut in Melbourne, and while he would never actually race for Renault, he would go on to win nine grands prix for Red Bull.

Photo: Minardi

All through the 2001 season, the question was whether F1 teams were taking any notice of Wilson at all. Eventually the interest came, including from McLaren and Williams, but it was Jordan that gave him his first tests. Eddie Jordan was on the lookout for a young driver who could go on to challenge the dominance of Michael Schumacher, and was also talking to 2001’s other record-breaking junior series champion, Takuma Sato. It was eventually Sato that got the drive, undoubtedly pleasing engine supplier Honda.

Wilson was also considered by Minardi, only to lose out to Webber, forcing him to spend a season in the World Series by Nissan. Later in 2002, when Minardi benched the struggling Alex Yoong for two races, Wilson went for a seat fitting – but couldn’t squeeze into the car and the drive went instead to the somewhat shorter Anthony Davidson. But Stoddart wanted Wilson to replace Jaguar-bound Webber for 2003 and made sure his team’s car was built to fit him. He wanted sponsorship too, and Palmer raised it through an innovative share offering.

Now given his chance, Wilson impressed to the point that he earned a mid-season switch to Jaguar – where he became Webber’s team-mate, in place of the underperforming Pizzonia. For 2004 he had to make way for Red Bull’s F3 Euro Series runner-up Christian Klien. Wilson moved to Champ Car, finishing runner-up to series dominator Bourdais in 2006 and 2007 before taking the Frenchman’s Newman/Haas Lanigan seat when he got his own deserved chance in F1.

Champ Car was immediately merged into IndyCar and Wilson was once more the underdog, but he thrived in that role, earning victories with the plucky Dale Coyne Racing team – as well as the respect of his peers and fans for his efforts behind the wheel and his kindness out of the car. When Wilson was killed by debris striking his helmet during a race at Pocono in 2015, he was contesting a part-time schedule with Andretti Autosport – an opportunity that might just have led to his talent getting a full-time go at a championship once more.

The post Memories of 2001: When Wilson won out over Webber appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Venturi Racing

Formula 3 star Jake Hughes will act as reserve driver for Venturi Racing in Formula E this year.

The 26-year-old Briton is not new to FE, having been a test and simulator driver for Mercedes-Benz last season, when he was racing for the manufacturer’s former DTM and FE partner HWA Racelab in the FIA F3 Championship.

HWA promoted Hughes to its Formula 2 line-up for last year’s Sochi round, but he has not secured a full-time step up to the category with the team for 2021.

”I’m incredibly excited to join Venturi Racing as the team’s reserve driver,” said Hughes.

“I want to say a big thank you to Susie [Wolff] and the team for trusting me with this opportunity. I’ve driven Formula E cars in the past, most recently with Mercedes, so I feel ready to do my job.”

Hughes has spent the past five years racing at the F3 level, winning races in Asia and Europe in continental series. He declared last September that he would be moving on from it for 2021.

“I’m looking forward to supporting Edo [Mortara] and Norman [Nato] this season and I’m excited to help the team make the car as fast as possible while, of course, learning on the way.

“FE is an incredibly exciting championship, and it feels fantastic to be back at a race track.”

The delayed 2020-21 FE season will be the first one run as a FIA world championship, and Venturi will compete with a customer powertrain supply from Mercedes.

Venturi’s team principal Susie Wolff added: ”The role of the reserve driver is crucial in FE especially during these challenging times with the global pandemic.

“Jake has done more than prove his talent and natural ability on the junior single-seater ladder and we’re delighted to welcome him to Venturi Racing.”

Also joining the roster of FE reserve drivers is 2019 Super Formula Lights champion Sacha Fenestraz at Jaguar.

The Franco-Argentinian is set to contest his sophomore season in Super Formula this year with Kondo Racing, but travel restrictions could lead to that campaign being cancelled for him.

FE’s opening two rounds take place this weekend, under spotlights during the night, in the Saudi Arabian city of Riyadh.

The post Jake Hughes lands Formula E reserve driver role at Venturi appeared first on Formula Scout.

The 2018 Formula 4 South East Asia and Formula Renault Asiacup champion currently competes in Asian Formula 3, although his 2019-20 campaign has been disrupted by education commitments and the coronavirus outbreak.

Cao will make his FE test debut in Marrakech next month, but is not set to return to Asian F3 at Buriram this weekend.

“We are pleased to announce a new addition to the team: 18-year-old rising Chinese star Daniel Cao joins as our development driver and will enjoy his first taste of all electric single-seater car in the [Marrakech] rookie test,” a NIO statement said.

There are several other junior single-seater stars already confirmed for FE’s rookie test in Morocco.

Super Formula-bound Sacha Fenestraz – who dominated Super Formula Lights last year – will join W Series champion Jamie Chadwick at Jaguar, while Chadwick’s rival Alice Powell joins other British team Virgin Racing.

BMW Andretti will run its Indy Lights driver Kyle Kirkwood in the test along with new DTM signing Lucas Auer – who raced in the Toyota Racing Series in a junior single-seater return last year.

Ferrari junior Arthur Leclerc will test once again for Venturi, which he has been a junior driver with for several seasons.

Mercedes-Benz could call upon its junior driver Paul Aron, as the pool of drivers that manufacturer partner HWA runs in Formula 2 and FIA F3 are all scheduled to be in Bahrain for their pre-season tests.

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