There’s no hiding the fact that Norman Nato’s points scoring contribution at Nissan this season is extremely limited.
Of the 172 scored in the factory Nissan e-4ORCE 05 cars, only 11 have come from Nato’s side of the garage. Without context and detailing of the facts, that would constitute an untenable position, similar to that of Sascha Fenestraz’s predicament last season.
Nato has been compromised by a cruel mixture of team errors, wrong time/wrong place and a few small mistakes and missteps from his side. Even when things go right his luck is out (Homestead). They guy can’t catch a break and is up there with Robin Frijns in the ‘chien-noir’ stakes.
Tokyo last weekend was similar to all those things. While Rowland brought home 46 points, Nato brought home none. Why?
On Saturday in the wet Nato started from P3 and looked to be in a strong position early on. Then he fell back alarmingly and was classified a frustrated 15th after struggling with overall grip.
A day later and Nato bang on it in FP3, second in his qualifying group, posting the second fastest time and then qualifying in eighth position, albeit after tagging the wall at the T10/11 chicane and bending his steering. Against his teammate it very much wasn’t a time to make such a public error.
If he thought that was an emotional rollercoaster then the race would bring more ferment.
His strategy was aggressive at the beginning with the 300 [kW] laps and he made up some positions to run seventh but that was as good as it really got.
“I wouldn’t say we were unlucky but there were a lot of cars that under consumed quite a lot at the back of the grid that went flat out and made up a lot of positions,” Nato told FEN.
“The problem is that when you are P6 or P7, you are the first guy that you can overtake and that’s what they did. I dropped back to P12.
“I had one attack mode to go and I took my attack, I had a power cut, and unfortunately for me and for Stoffel as well, he was right behind me at the exit of Turn 8 and he just ‘jumped’ on me.
“That damaged my car so that was quite unlucky. I already lost five positions or something.”
On his poor point scoring record this season, Nato said that “you have to accept it. I can’t complain in a way about having the pace. We were fighting for a good position and it is so frustrating to not score points.
“Of course, it’s easy to compare me to Oliver, and he is doing a great job with the same package. But you can see other people having a Porsche or a Nissan powertrain, and it’s not easy for anyone.
“Points-wise, my season is bad, but I’m fast. Every session, every free practice, I am not far away from Oliver, sometimes in front.”
What many don’t see with Nato is that the decision to bring him back in to the team didn’t formulate until relatively late, around mid-September, after Fenestraz’s form became too poor to contemplate keeping him. Did that become a factor for the first half of the season too?
“Coming back to a new team, this is what I am missing compared to Oliver with the race pace, he has the experience of fighting at the front, also with the systems of the car and the structure of the team with my engineers and everything,” reckoned Nato.
“Strategy is very important this year and of course we are not doing everything perfect on my side. But we have the most difficult thing [to achieve], which is the pace. It didn’t come this weekend unfortunately, but we showed great pace, so we try again in Shanghai to finish the job.”
Nato feels very much like a driver who is on the cusp of a very big result in Formula E right now.
Jamie Klein contributed to this story
