Who is Sacha Fenestraz, the Argentine driver who races in Formula E

THE formula E landed for the first time this weekend in Brazil to play the Sao Paulo E Prix, sixth round of the season. And among the 22 riders who will be looking for the first victory in the history of the category on Brazilian soil, there is one who races under the French flag, but has a blue and tender heart. He is sacha fenestrazwho was born 23 years ago in Annecy, an Alpine town in the south-east of the French country, but is Cordovan at heart, having spent the first years of his life in Santa Catalina, near Colonia Caroya.

For this reason, when he speaks, a bit of a Cordovan melody that still accompanies him leaks out. Not much, because he moved to Europe while still very young to pursue his dream of making a career in international motorsport. And after struggling for a long time, this year he’s racing for the first time in a world championship, at the wheel of one of the team’s cars. Nissan E Team.

“I’m very happy, it’s my first season in a world championship. And being here in São Paulo makes me very happy. I am French, but also very Argentinian, and this is the closest race to my home, Córdoba,” commented Fenestraz, shortly before the start of the official date, in an interview with the press at Nissan. of the city of São Paulo, where a specially designed circuit was set up for the occasion.

Fenestraz – the second Italian driver to compete in this category – has motorsport in his blood. His mother StephanieFrench, ran the Dakar twice as navigator. Following in his footsteps, Sacha started driving when he was very young in Córdoba, where his family settled when he was only six months old. There he began his story behind the wheel.

He started out, like the vast majority of guys who dream of becoming a professional racing driver, aboard a go-kart when he was just four years old. His passion for this sport grew very quickly and at the age of 12 he decided to take an important leap: to leave the comforts of his family home and return to Europe, alone, because he felt that in Argentina he would not have the same opportunities to grow . His decision turned out to be the right one, even if he didn’t have much fun in his first years on the old continent.

“There were a lot of good times, but also a lot of bad times,” he admits after consulting with clarion about its beginnings. “When I went to Europe, I was almost 12, I went to a town with 200 inhabitants, where there was almost nothing, and I hardly ever saw my family. I spent two and a half years living with a karting team family and it was very difficult. I wouldn’t do it again today. If I had a child, neither would I. They have been very difficult years, which I would not like to repeat. But what came next in my career was very good. There were more good times than bad. And today I’m sitting here, fulfilling a dream. To achieve this dream we had to go through difficult times, nothing is easy. So I’m not complaining.”

The sports career that followed those difficult years brought many joys. Sacha raced in 2015 in formula 4 in the Old Continent. In 2017 he was European champion of renault formula, in a season in which he won seven races and reached the podium another ten times, in 23 races. Two years later, his talent caught the attention of the Japanese team. B Max Racingwho hired him to run in the formula 3 in that country. And in his first year there, he screamed champion. Good performances from him enabled him to run in Japanese super GTone of the most important Gran Turismo categories in the world, and also testing a car from Formula 1 in an exhibition. And they ended up opening the doors of the formula E.

His first experience in the world’s most important electric car category comes in 2021, a season in which he was a reserve driver for Jaguar. Although only this year he has joined a team as a driver, the Nissan E Team

Fenestraz has made his way through dedication in the world of motorsports, with the help of a very special consultant, Jose Maria Lopezwho was the first Argentine to race in the FE. small chestwho was her brother-in-law for a while and with whom she still has a great friendship today, was always there for Sacha.

“He’s a good friend. I started going to Formula E when I was around 16 and Pecho was already racing. I always saw this and thought “How nice it would be to be there!”, because it is one of the most important world championships. I went to see him and saw how he worked, how he organized things. He has always helped me,” the French-Argentine recalled with a smile.

“He gave me a lot of advice, but I think two were very important,” continued what he has Ayrton Senna Already Juan Manuel Fangio like idols. “One, which he told me even before I arrived in this category, was to always respect street circuits, because the margins of error are very small, they are dangerous and very ‘dirty’ circuits outside the race line. The other one, one of the wisest things he gave me, that in a weekend you have to build, not go out and try to set a record on the first lap, because that’s where you’ll end up making a mistake and hitting a wall. hero at the start of the weekend, because the most important thing is the race.”

Fenestraz races with the French flag, but his heart is still in our country, even though he has been driving around the world for years. Although the blue and the soft does not appear next to his name in the race classifications today, he – who dreams of one day being able to race with a license from our country – is already the “Argentine ambassador” in Formula E.

The new challenge of Formula E

Fenestraz – who is 18th in the championship with seven points, far behind the leader, the German Pascal Wehrlein (Porsche, 80) – started his career in this category with good performances. At the end of February, in the fifth appointment of the year a Cape Town, took pole position, an impressive achievement for a “rookie” who has raced his entire life in petrol-powered cars and has only a handful of races with electric cars. In the race he came close to the podium, but an accident after a contact with the New Zealander Nick Cassidy in the last lap he left him empty-handed. This hasn’t discouraged him, because he knows he still has a long way to go.

“I come from a totally different world and this year is completely new for me. I have raced my entire sporting career in internal combustion engine cars, with petrol, smell, noise… This is a heavier car than the one I was driving earlier and it has less grip, you are more in the air, you fight more in the race, luckily this year the cars are all new (Editor’s note: The third generation of cars was introduced this year), so this made things easier for me”, reflected who this Friday set the second fastest time of the first free practice sessions (1m12s453), behind the Frenchman.

And he continued: “It took me some time to adapt, I would say that I still don’t feel like driving it 100 percent. In Cape Town I took pole position, but I didn’t feel like it. I was 100 per cent out of the car, it’s an unforgiving car and, given that you race on urban circuits, the margin for error is really minimal.”

How are you dealing with urban arrangements? “I’ve always loved them. Since I started my career, I’ve always done relatively well on all urban circuits, like Macau or Monaco. I think one of the reasons I’m here is because Nissan saw what I did in Macau , “It’s one of the toughest circuits in the world, and that made them interested in signing me this season, because they’ve seen that the circuits are going well for me. I still have a lot to learn, but little by little we are progressing,” she said.