Jack Giordmaina catches up with a former F1 Grand Prix winner who appears to be relishing his new role as part of the inaugural Formula E Championship…
Former Formula One star Jarno Trulli is adamant that Formula E can succeed in becoming a well-respected championship following the first four rounds of the season.
The 2004 Monaco Grand Prix winner has adopted the unique role of team owner and driver for the Trulli Formula E team in the FIA Formula E Championship, the world’s first fully-electric racing series.
All 10 teams use the same electric racing car built by Spark Racing Technology for season one, but from season two the series will become an ‘open championship’, allowing every team to showcase their electrical energy innovations. Each car can utilise full power (200kw/270bhp) during practice and qualifying, though they are restricted to 150kw/202.5bhp during the ePrix races.
“When I first tested the Formula E car I was really impressed with how it worked and all the technology behind it,” notes Trulli. “As I began to understand how this new series would work my interest levels increased further; I began to feel that this championship could really succeed and provide a great stepping-stone for the future of the car industry, and that’s why I decided to become a team owner.”
Trulli admits that the thought of becoming a team owner never did cross his mind during his time in F1, nor throughout his two-year hiatus from the sport. However, when the opportunity arose for him to be involved in running his own team the Italian was unable to turn down the offer.
“I never thought I would become a team owner and I never really had any ambition to do so. However, because of the opportunity I had to join the series and get involved with improving this ground-breaking technology I decided that I would try my hand at it.
“I only had a short period of time to set up a team of people so that we could get ready for the first test last July. Nevertheless, we were able to pull through and get to the first race of the season, and the team has been improving everyday since round one in Beijing.”
Trulli’s best race finish so far came at round three in Punta Del Este, Uruguay, where he finished fourth after qualifying in sixth position, securing 12 points for his team. The Italian had also shown good pace in the second round in Putrajaya, Malaysia, running in as high as second place before receiving a drive-through penalty for exceeding his allocated power usage.
Over the next two months the 40-year-old is hopeful that his team can make progress on understanding how to manage their power usage, believing that understanding its power usage will be key to success in this championship. However, he also points out that the lack of time teams have to work on their cars during races as being an issue.
“The problem we have as a team is the limited time we can spend on the car. Of course, this is the same for everybody else, but if you have a problem and you need to analyse the data to find out the problem you can’t always do so, otherwise you will lose too much running time in the day. Therefore, you risk carrying over that problem into the next round.”
With the championship currently in hibernation Trulli will be hopeful of ironing out any problems his team may have before the championship reconvenes in Miami on 14 March. Having driven for no less than five teams while accumulating 252 F1 race starts don’t bet against this wily Italian writing another chapter in his career.