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.

The post Junior single-seater stars to contest FE rookie practice session in Miami appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Mahindra

Four more junior single-seater stars have been chosen by Formula E teams for the championship’s rookie test in Berlin on July 14.

Mahindra will utilise Formula 2 racers Dino Beganovic and Kush Maini [pictured above]. The latter was the team’s reserve driver and contested the rookie test with them last season.

The 24-year-old Indian has already been in action with Mahindra in 2025, having driven in the rookie-only practice session at the Jeddah E-Prix.

“I was really impressed with the Mahindra M11Electro in Jeddah, it’s a great car to drive and I can’t wait to experience it again in Berlin,” said Maini. “Mahindra is a manufacturer I’ve worked with first-hand a lot over the last 18 months, and I’ve seen the hard work and development that has gone into improving the team’s results on-track.”

Maini is currently a reserve driver for Alpine’s Formula 1 team alongside his third F2 season. He sits 12th in the standings, and two positions ahead is Ferrari junior Beganovic. The 21-year-old has two podiums and a pole from his rookie campaign so far, and has done two F1 practice sessions with Ferrari.

“I’m looking forward to the opportunity to drive for Mahindra at the Berlin rookie test, and to try a FE car for the first time,” Beganovic said.

One place behind Maini in F2’s points table is Gabriele Mini. He claimed a podium in a 2024 cameo, and started his rookie season by topping the year’s first qualifying session. Since then he has made the podium once and had several non-finishes.

The 20-year-old Italian is an Alpine junior, and that team’s collaboration with Nissan led to him driving for them in the 2024 rookie test, rookie-only practice session and now the 2025 rookie test.

“It’s great to be back, I’ve enjoyed my two previous outings with the team, so I’m delighted to work with them again,” said Mini.

“It’s a track I know well,” he added. “I also had the chance to drive the Gen3 Evo in the FP0 session in Jeddah, with the 350kW power mode, new tyres, and all-wheel drive, so I will be aiming to put these two experiences together. My main goal is to keep learning and to help the team complete its programme for the day, like we did in Jeddah, while also showing my pace.”

The Cupra-partnered Kiro Race Co. team (formerly known as Team China Racing, NIO and then ERT) has completed its rookie test line-up by calling up Callum Voisin.

“I’m thrilled to be joining Cupra Kiro for the Berlin rookie test and to get my first experience of FE,” said the 19-year-old.

“I’ve been following FE for a long time, and I’m really looking forward to learning everything I can, both in the car, and from Dan [Ticktum] and David [Beckmann].”

Voisin was 2023 GB3 champion and a race winner in FIA Formula 3. He is currently in his sophomore year in the championship.

Click here for more on FE’s rookie test entry list.

The post Beganovic, Mini, Maini and Voisin to drive in Formula E’s rookie test appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Nissan

GB3 racer Abbi Pulling has signed a multi-year deal to join the Nissan Formula E team, where her responsibilies will be rookie test and simulator driver.

FE’s annual rookie test takes place in Berlin, and Pulling will drive one of Nissan’s cars in the next few runnings of the test.

The 22-year-old has already got FE mileage with Nissan, having driven on the final day of pre-season testing last November when teams were required to run a woman in at least one of their cars for at least one session.

“I’m really excited to be joining Nissan and extending our collaboration together, after driving for the squad during the all-women’s test in Jarama,” said Pulling.

“Everything the team did for me during the test was so professional. The time and effort put in to make sure I was prepared was great to see, and the crew were patient with me as a rookie.

“The Gen 3 Evo car is so unique, especially the 350kW mode in all-wheel drive which was very fun to use. It’s different from anything I’ve driven before, and it took some time to adjust to the increased power. I’m looking forward to my work in the simulator and to take the car on track as well when the opportunities arise.”

Nissan’s team principal Tommaso Volpe added: “We’re very pleased to welcome Abbi to the team as our official rookie and simulator driver on a multi-year agreement. We were very impressed with her speed, commitment, and professionalism during the all-women’s test in Madrid last November, and we’re very happy to extend and formalise our collaboration.

“She is very talented – she was able to adapt incredibly quickly to the car and comfortably top the timesheets, which is difficult in every category but even more so in FE, so she is the perfect candidate to join us in this role.”

At the time of her FE test debut, Pulling had links to Nissan by being one of the Alpine Formula 1 team’s junior drivers as the two brands are part of the same automotive group. However she decided to leave Alpine’s ranks this February.

She joined as a affiliate driver of the Alpine Academy in 2022, due to racing in Formula Regional where Alpine was not giving the drivers it supported junior status, then became a fully fledged member the next two years despite stepping down to Formula 4.

Pulling raced in the all-female W Series in 2021 and ’22, picking up a pole and three podiums in the centrally-run FRegional championship, then did two seasons in the F4-spec and all-female F1 Academy series. In her second campaign she became champion with nine wins, and also took a win en route to seventh in British F4.

Since stepping back up to FRegional-level competition in GB3 this year, she has had a best finish of fifth from three rounds.

The post Abbi Pulling joins Nissan Formula E team on multi-year deal 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

The post Nissan to utilise Alpine juniors Floersch and Pulling in FE test appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Sam Bagnall

Caio Collet will make his Formula E race debut with Nissan in this weekend’s Portland E-Prix.

The 22-year-old Brazilian was signed by the team as its reserve driver in January 2024, and since then the former Alpine junior Collet has driven in the rookie-only practice session at the Misano E-Prix and also the rookie test in Berlin.

His primary racing programme this year is Indy Nxt, where he is currently third in the standings with four podiums from his first eight races with the HMD Motorsports team. He stepped up to the American series from the FIA Formula 3 Championship, where he spent three seasons. In that time he claimed one pole, won three sprint races and took eight other podiums.

Collet has been called up by Nissan to race as its regular driver Oliver Rowland has fallen ill and is unable to compete. It is expected that Rowland will recover in time for the next FE event in London in three weeks’ time.

The Portland outing could prove very useful for Collet since he will be returning to the track in August for Indy Nxt’s race there. However his FE call-up has also forced him to miss today’s Indy Nxt test at Iowa Speedway where he was set to gain some crucial oval mileage.

Collet is one of several junior single-seater racers to get mid-season debuts in FE this year, with Envision Racing using Formula 2 points leader Paul Aron at the Berlin E-Prix and McLaren running his F2 rival Taylor Barnard in the Monaco E-Prix and in Berlin.

The post Caio Collet to make Formula E debut with Nissan at Portland E-Prix appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: McLaren

Several Formula E teams have selected junior single-seater stars to represent them in the rookie-only practice session at this week’s Misano E-Prix and next month’s rookie test in Berlin.

McLaren’s reserve driver Taylor Barnard has been called up to drive at Misano on April 12, which will be his second outing in a FE car. His first came with the team in pre-season testing last year, which prompted McLaren to sign him.

The 19-year-old came second in Formula Regional Middle East at the start of this year, and his main racing programme for 2024 is Formula 2. He currently sits a points-free 22nd in the standings three rounds into his rookie season.

“I am delighted that Taylor will be representing the McLaren FE team [in Misano],” said Ian James, McLaren’s FE team principal. “In his current role of reserve and development Driver, Taylor is an integral part of the team and has helped us improve our performance on track.

Barnard’s F2 rival Dennis Hauger will get his first taste of a FE car with Porsche in the Berlin test on May 13. The former Red Bull junior is in his third F2 season and has taken a win, a second, a third, a pole and a fastest lap from the first six races of the year. The 21-year-old is a title outsider, currently occupying a distant third place in the standings.

Abt Cupra meanwhile has put its faith in 19-year-old Formula 3 racer Tim Tramnitz for the rookie-only action in Misano and Berlin.

Fresh from finishing third in the FRegional European Championship last October, Tramnitz travelled to Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit to drive for Abt in FE pre-season testing. While he was not given a team role off the back of it, he impressed Abt enough to be called up again now.

“I am really looking forward to the Abt team and the FE test. The first few hours last year were already a lot of fun – and it’s always cool to sit in a race car,” said Tramnitz. “I especially like working with the engineers when we look at and analyse all the data, because it’s much more comprehensive than it is for me in F3. I can learn a lot and take a lot with me.”

Tramnitz is sixth in the FIA F3 Championship points table two rounds into his rookie season, with a podium coming in his second race.

As anticipated, Nissan will use its reserve driver Caio Collet at Misano. The 22-year-old Brazilian was 2020 Formula Renault Eurocup, a race-winner in the FIA F3 Championship in each of the last two years and is now racing in Indy Nxt. He finished seventh on his debut in St. Petersburg last month.

The post F2, Indy Nxt and F3 stars get Formula E call-ups for rookie-only sessions appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Nissan has signed former Alpine junior Caio Collet as its reserve and simulator driver in Formula E.

Collet was announced in the role five days after the opening round of the 2023-24 FE season, and recently he has been busy in the USA taking part in Indy Nxt pre-season testing. He is believed to be plotting a move up to the series.

Although Collet’s appearance in FE’s rookie test this year is yet to be confirmed, Nissan did say fans should “get ready to see him in action” during the season.

The 21-year-old Brazilian started his single-seater career in Formula 4, coming sixth in the United Arab Emirates championship as a part-timer then winning the French F4 title during his rookie year in 2018.

The Renault Formula 1 team signed him as a junior off the back of that success, and Collet spent the next two years in the Formula Regional-spec Formula Renault Eurocup. Six podiums in his rookie campaign was followed up by five wins and the championship runner-up spot in 2020. He was also a race-winner in the Toyota Racing Series that year.

Renault rebranded to Alpine in 2021, and moved Collet up to a FIA Formula 3 Championship seat with MP Motorsport. He came ninth in the standings in his first season, and improved to eighth in his second by taking two wins.

Collet was no longer an Alpine junior when he stayed in F3 for a third season last year, and his move to Van Amersfoort Racing resulted in one win and ninth in the points table.

The post Nissan signs Caio Collet as FE reserve driver appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport & Nissan

Three more junior single-seater racers have been called up to drive in Formula E’s rookie test in Berlin on April 24.

Following Andretti Autosport’s announcement that it will run reigning Indy Nxt champion Linus Lundqvist and Formula 2 racer Zane Maloney, and the decisions by Envision Racing and Porsche to call upon 2022 F2 racers Jack Aitken and David Beckmann respectively, there have been three more drivers who have been handed the chance to drive a FE car for the first time.

Envision completes its test line-up with former Red Bull junior Jonny Edgar, who races in the FIA Formula 3 championship.

“We are very pleased to be welcoming Jonny to Envision Racing for the upcoming rookie test in Berlin,” said Envision’s managing director Sylvain Filippi.

“Jonny has a very impressive motorsport CV at such a young age, and we are very excited to see him step into our Gen3 car. The test will give him his first taste of FE, whilst also providing our team with valuable data for the remaining races.”

Edgar is in his third FIA F3 season, and still pursuing his first series podium. The 19-year-old missed two rounds last year due to Chrohn’s disease.

At Nissan, a team previously run by F2 squad DAMS, Alpine junior Victor Martins has been called up for the rookie test. The F2 rookie is the reigning FIA F3 champion, and will test alongside F2 graduate Luca Ghiotto who is Nissan’s simulator driver.

“We’re really pleased to have Luca on board. He’s been working in the simulator since the beginning of the season so it made sense to give him an opportunity in the car,” said team principal Tommaso Volope.

“This will be valuable for the team as the test will benefit Luca in the simulator and give him plenty of experience to help us develop our performance.

“Victor is a young and promising driver, and we’re pleased to be using our connections with the Alpine Academy and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance. It’s great for the championship to be attracting rising stars like him.”

Martins added: “It’s a huge honor to be selected for the rookie test with Nissan. The team has a close relationship with the Alpine Academy, which I’m a part of, and it’s a great chance for me to experience a FE car for the first time. I’ve already been in the simulator and found it really interesting.”

Fellow F1 team-backed racer Luke Browning, who races in F3, will make his FE test debut with McLaren.

“I’m really looking forward to be jumping into the McLaren FE car,” he said. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to gain some experience in very different machinery than usual.

“I’ll be looking to pick up as much as I can from the successful and experienced team I will be surrounded by. It will be a different style of driving compared to what I’m used to – I don’t doubt I have a lot to learn, but I’m eager to pick it up as quickly as possible.”

The post Martins leads next group of junior racers joining Formula E rookie test appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: Lou Johnson and Formula E

During summer, Formula Scout was privileged enough to speak to two men at the helm of different parts of Nissan’s global research and development. Now, five months on, their exciting joint project has begun

There is a misconception that Formula E is somehow less complex, slower or easier than Formula 1, but the reality is both ask the same things of drivers in near-identical environments but just with different forms of propulsion behind them.

Increasingly, the intricacies of multi-tasking in an electric car is becoming more road-relevant than knowing how to use the power of an internal combustion engine, and as cost caps come in across top-level motorsport the smaller details are going to become more important to success a closer-fought racing future. Nissan is one of the brands that is well aware of that.

“We have been producing electrified prototypes for 70 years, and we launched the very first mass-produced very important Nissan Leaf 11 years ago, before anyone else,” Tommaso Volpe, its global motorsport director, explains to Formula Scout.

“We produced half a million cars. So we are a leader and a pioneer in electrification. Definitely for us being in FE, which is the pinnacle of motorsport for electric vehicles, is a way to promote this expertise.

“But apart from the promotional side, which is very important, it’s also a platform to develop intellectual property and research and development that can be useful for our core business.”

And this is where the possibly the most exciting motorsport-based sports science and neuroscience project ever comes in.

Before that, a brief explainer of what Nissan is already getting out of FE beyond marketing success. The development that goes into its FE powertrain, the motor, inverter and gearbox as well as the energy management software is also being taken into its automotive work, and it starts with the hardware.

“How can we make it as efficient as possible? How do we make the software for the energy management as sophisticated as possible?” hypothesises Volpe. “This is what we can transfer to the core business. How to design a gearbox, which is a level of thermal efficiency which is nearly 100% – like 97%, 98%. The same for the motor. It’s between 95-100%. We cannot disclose the number, but to give you an idea of the level of efficiency we reach. So how to make very efficient parts, this is definitely gold for us to transfer to the core business.

“The energy management software in FE, it’s very sophisticated, it generates a lot of experience that we can transfer to the normal development of our cars. And electric vehicles, when it comes to the platform, they compete on this. The successful electric vehicle platforms are the ones which have the best efficiency and the most sophisticated energy management. This is exactly the most relevant area where we could spend money in motorsport.

“Basically every single dollar that we spend is for something which is technically relevant for the core business.”

Nissan’s latest R&D step is now though going into what’s physiologically relevant to the company worldwide.

The Brain to Performance project was announced in July after months of rigorous planning with this aim: “[to use] advanced brain imaging and analysis to determine the anatomical specifics of high performance, professional drivers. The program aims to develop bespoke, optimised training to enhance the brain functions and anatomy related to driving and racing.”

The first subjects and “immediate priority” of the project are Nissan’s FE racers Sebastien Buemi and Maximilian Gunther. Buemi has been with the DAMS-run team since day one and claimed Nissan’s first win at the 2019 New York City E-Prix, while Gunther moves from Andretti Autosport for the 2021-22 season that begins in Saudi Arabia next month.

In the 1990s Michael Schumacher raised the bar on fitness for racing drivers, in the 2000s some mastered simulator tools to find an edge, and then in the 2010s an increasing number hired mental coaches to improve their abilities. For this coming decade, Nissan may be about to find the next step in performance science.

Nissan’s senior innovation researcher Dr Lucian Gheorghe is the man leading the research, having contributed to 20 previous published pieces on anatomical brain research, brain computer interfaces and the act of driving. Basically his job is to “better build the connection between people and Nissan vehicles” and that is literal.

First he pioneered the ‘Brain to Vehicle’ tech going into cars, detecting real-time brain activity and through an algorithm predicting what a driver will do next in the car, so then telling the car to prepare itself functionally for that input.

When Formula Scout got to speak with Dr Gheorghe, he said that technology was “more or less the tip of the iceberg for a long-term research project”.

It’s been a decade in the working already, and has partnered with University of Essex for the first driver tests and with EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, after Ghoerghe got his Phd in applied neuroscience there.

Brain to Vehicle focused on motor cortex activity – what happens when we voluntarily move our bodies – and where in the brain that activity was encoded. The Performance project goes beyond that.

“There’s a circuit in our brain that fires every time the same way when our expectations are not met,” Gheorghe explains. “So this second project we can use to label events in the car. Whether it’s a navigation proposing something, whether there’s a way of braking or accelerating or so on, and then you can say the driver agreed with that action or did not agree with that action.

“And then with that we could see differences in the way motor cortex prepares before doing motions. We could see difference in the way people disagree to big differences or to small differences. We could sometimes see sensitivity to very small braking actions.”

Being able to feel a wheel locking and reducing the brake pressure is crucial in racing, particularly on low-grip street circuits.

“It’s differences in ways of braking, not only where to brake,” Gheorghe adds. “And we could see some correlations with skills between these two. So we are extending now, and we are saying how can we learn from studying brain activity of very, very good drivers like the FE drivers, and this is why I am working now with Tomaso in this project. What if we can compare with these tools that we already have, the differences between average or even below-average drivers, and very, very good drivers? And if we can find some models or some specifics in these differences, how can we build an accelerated training programme in order to promote the development of the brain functions that correlate the most with laptime difference and being able to control a very good speed and so on.

“Brain to Performance is basically taking the tools that we had, developed in our long-term research project, and trying to apply it to in order to be able to develop new tools that first of all will hopefully help our FE drivers to increase their performance, and then on a longer term span that maybe at one point in time in the future will help most of our customers to drive better. Which means that we will increase the chances for our customers to be electrified, to have this access to this very special experience that is driving pleasure when being in an electrical vehicle. A long answer to a simple question.”

It’s a detailed answer, but the key for research data to be meaningful so conclusions can be reached is to have a broad and representative sample set and often repeatability. Only two FE drivers out of 100s of professional drivers (albeit of which only 25 can say they are active FE drivers) sounds very small, and there’s no way Nissan could bring in even 0.001% of the total population of ‘average drivers’ to be included in the project. Of course data protection legislation makes any scaling up very hard.

“There’s one thing to write a scientific paper, and that is exactly what you’re saying,” Gheorghe says in response to Formula Scout’s query.

“I will have to ask all of the FE teams to join the programme and to record and to write [the same us] to be able to write a paper that says ‘look, this is statistically different: these 20 guys, and these 20 guys [not from FE], their brains are this way’.

“That [scale of data gathering] happens mainly when you look only at brain activity from an electric point of view, looking from outside, an EEG [Electroencephalography electrogram reading of the brain] with an EEG device. But if you look inside, you use a device that can show you the shape of the brain, which is an fMRI [functional magnetic resonance imaging], and that shows how each brain works. Even then, it’s still rather weak in terms of publishing [a paper from this research].

“But we do have statistical tools that can show differences between one brain against another. You can find certain areas in the brain where this one is larger, it’s more developed than this other one. And for building a training methodology, this is what we are going to be using – differences in the anatomy, in the shapes of the very good drivers compared with average drivers. And then to try to build a training programme based on this shape as well, not only electrical activity.”

An fMRI detects blood flow within the brain, and therefore which areas are using more oxygen for activity on the accepted theory that the neural activity and blood flow of the brain are conjoined. To test that though, you need a huge machine which participants would have to lie motionless in for hours. Therefore preventing them from participating in many other activities…

“You can do both [activities and readings], the high-definition MRI can give the shape of each part of the brain,” Gheorghe reassures. “All the slices. And then you can use that in terms of volume analysis. And fMRI, it’s the function part which is what you’re saying with looking at blood flow and so on. An example, and this is how it leads us usually to drawing this kind of experiment, is if you ask a very good athlete to do mental training. So to repeat his protocol what he usually does before driving. He sits in the car, and he drives the lap in his mind. And what is very interesting, the better the driver, the closer the status of the brain is to real driving.”

You see this on the grid before F1 and FE races, as drivers sit down, close their eyes and go through the lap in their mind. This technique is often called visualisation, but clearly it’s triggering something similar to the usual motor cortex activity and more.

“It’s not only the brain,” Gheorghe grins. “You could see, it’s very interesting, this is another thing I’d never have the time to study here, but it’s very, very interesting. You could even see people sweating.

“So it’s not only the brain, but the whole body. The whole dynamic of the body can be put in this status that is very, very close to actual driving. And then you have very accurate drivers who can do it in real time. They would drive a 2m06s lap [in real life], we then ask them to do it in their brain, and it would be like 2m05 point something. And here I am talking about one of our Nissan GT drivers, and he said ‘I can just jump the straights’. So doing only the corners, then it’s a 1m03s. So there are ways [to do activities while prone in a MRI scanner]. And it’s the good part of working with very good drivers.

“If you ask an average driver to do that, you would see a lot of visual cortex activity. Which means that he is visually imagining himself driving. It is not really putting the brain in the status where his motor cortex moves and everything. It is only visualisation of what happens. And this is again another line of how good you are at imagining the status.”

For young drivers the benefit is clear. It’s generally accepted medically that younger brains have more neural plasticity and therefore are more likely to be ‘trainable’. Think of the saying ‘an old dog can’t learn new tricks’, then apply it neurologically.

And while professional racing drivers can do thousands of kilometres of testing, regular drivers also often use cars in a very routine way just as drivers take on the same lap again and again. Is it a comparison that would be useful for training racers?

“It could be, but what we’re looking at now with fMRI, this is a study that we have done before, asking people ‘please try to imagine to do this’ and seeing correlations with skills and so on. In this specific project with the FE drivers, we will be focusing more on brain shape, on MRI recordings. And secondly, we will be going back to electrical activity to measure the comparison with the FE drivers, we will have them driving our [research lab] driving simulator.”

Buemi and Gunther will make repeat visits to the labs to drive and be scanned, meaning it can be seen how their brains may change over time with training, if at all.

“We will use a similar process with average drivers, and then with the two drivers that we have. And then with the students we will be doing a longer term process with following up of training and following up over a period of time how they adapt to learning a new track and so on.”

There’s a fascinating scope to even turn the average drivers into racers by thought, and then see if that’s applicable on track. And with Gheorghe’s look at shape, localised specialisation could be observed in the brain where there is more white matter, which are relays which appear in greater frequency where that part of the brain is in greater use in the long run.

“It could be like that, most probably,” Gheorghe confirms. “And then the idea is how can you personalise the training to be focused on these specific areas, and how can you personalise to be focused on the areas that are not activated and should be activated. How can you train to have these optimisations from motor cortex going lower to white to grey area, then grey matter [the processing part of the brain].

“Then how can you help a person to encode all these automatic activities in a faster way than they would be doing it by simple training. Because you can train, right? If you have a person who keeps training, they will become better. But you do it over half a year. The goal is to accelerate this process. How can we help? How can we build bespoke training programmes for each of the participants in order to achieve a lot faster improvement in skill than you would do by just continuously driving?”

This is another win for racing drivers because testing time could be potentially cut at no cost to performance if optimisation can be reached faster. Just like the drivetrains, it could be Nissan is creating more efficient driving rather than faster driving.

Testing’s function in single-seaters has already changed slightly in recent years, with drivers learning tracks in simulators first and then focusing more on the cars once at a track. But using Nissan’s physiological approach is very static, whereas a lot of driver activity is gyroscopic response.

The tilting of the inner ear tells a driver if they are accelerating, braking or turning faster than the same message from their eyes can reach the brain, so surely the removal of that movement needs to be factored into the research and the fact that a racer’s muscle memory is based on the forces being applied to their body during a lap?

“Obviously if you use a static driving simulator, the development would be more about visual cortex connectivity towards motor cortex, and so on,” Gheorghe answers. “This is what’s going to happen at least this year, we’ll be focusing on this part of driving. By looking at the loop [of activity and action] from seeing, and moving. The programme is going to evolve, so we will continue working with them after the next season as well, and then let’s see how far we could go.

“Another aspect that we’re looking at is how we can use electric brain stimulation. And with this, at least you can activate areas of the brain that should be repeatedly activated. So even if the task that you do per se does not include inner ear activity and acceleration, pure physical acceleration detection, you could reinforce this loop and see what are the effects of reinforcing it with outside input. Because this is just a [simulation]. It’s how we create better networks within the brain, and if those networks can be established with stimulation, then in the end the result would be an overall better skillset.”

Nissan appears to have an answer to each question, whether it be on the scientific integrity or racing relevance, but Formula Scout’s probing goes further. Racing drivers aren’t just interacting with their car and the environment around them on track, they’re also conversing with their engineers and possibly doing so in their second or third language. Not only that, but the terms used often require additional learning and can be different from team to team.

Will that additional information processing, and how the need to multitask in the car may change the specialisation of the brain in terms of the location of white matter, be incorporated into the research too?

“That will come at a later point, and we will definitely have to be doing that [later], but [it’s separate to] trying to train in order to be better at talking with your engineer while driving, or to be better at reading the data about your battery on the dashboard while driving. Honestly that’s not straight up on the top of the list to train, but it’s on top of the list to learn.”

From a research perspective that makes sense to not add that layer of complexity, but it’s a massively important complexion in FE where drivers have to feed back to their engineers more than the other way around. And if the proposed FE feeder series that Nissan is supportive of gets off the ground, then it will be critical to find ways for drivers to learn that quickly too.

“This is very important for us [to know how they learn it]. If we can understand how they do it now, not conceptually but physiologically, what parts and how their brain works, while being able to control the car very well and do the secondary task, that is very informative for us because it’s basically a situation that emulates what happens in a daily drive.

“You are driving and you are looking at your satnav and you are talking to the person next to you and so on. At a lot faster speed, and a lot more condensed in FE, but it is the same processes. So what it means is that you have higher chances to be able to have a stronger contrast between single activity, double-tasking and so on. So all this [brain activity] that correlate with the secondary task should be more pre-eminent in a FE full driving task.”

The chain of linked events goes on when applied to an automotive setting, so much so that one of the potential outcomes of Brain to Performance could be an understanding of how racing drivers learn to co-ordinate engineer communications with their own driving then influences how future road cars introduce more complex speech and autonomous capabilities.

It’s already been applied in a similar way to Mercedes-AMG’s F1 team, where paddles and steering wheel switches have had their positions, thickness and colour optimised for driver reaction times and expectation. At Nissan, it’s been about optimising in-car displays to meet the needs of the driver’s brain. Once scanning is done, you can know how much information to show for an individual brain to process it as efficiently as possible, how dense it can be for the visual cortex but also cognitively, and when in the driving process is it best to show that info for it not to detract brain function from other parts of driving.

This level of detail can sound crazy, but it may well be a battleground in motorsport by the end of this decade if Brain to Performance can prove its worth to FE champion Buemi and his rising star team-mate Gunther, and once it’s in FE it will no doubt then trickle down into whatever junior single-seater series exist by then.

And would rivals have to invest as much R&D into this as Nissan is doing? Probably not. If “we do have a serious enough dataset in order to write a very serious paper around this area”, then Nissan will and publish it for communal gain too.

But the sharing of knowledge will now occur far more in real time rather than in academic papers published years later, and therefore there’s more data to go through to find relevant points. Both brain processing and top-level motorsport create gigabytes of data astonishingly quickly, and it’s another area where advances in the challenge of processing data could be made by Nissan if it tries to bring its access to supercomputers to both.

Potentially the software that’s developed to map the brain will then make it onto the pitwall for crunching similarly dense numbers in a live race situation. In each avenue, what may seem like an odd side-project by Nissan could actually be a masterful of way of finding extra performance. All it requires is the drivers to, almost literally, have an open mind.

More on Formula E
Teams in discussion to create FE support series
Why FE is a whole new ball game for single-seater stars
Podcast: Jake Dennis on the racing steps that founded his FE path

The post How Nissan could shape the future of driver development in Formula E appeared first on Formula Scout.