A new face to the Formula E all-female test at Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia next week will be former Indy Lights driver Lindsay Brewer.
She was chosen by DS Penske to be a part of its test day alongside British racer Jessica Edgar, who fulfilled a similar role a year ago at Jarama in the first test of its kind.
Brewer will get her first taste of the Gen3 Evo car on Friday morning at Valencia, and it will be the first time she has driven a single-seater competetively since racing for the Juncos Hollinger squad last season.
Prior to that part season Brewer had competed in the USF Pro Championship and this season she has raced in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo series in her homeland where she sits third in the AM category along with her British teammate Jem Hepworth in a Rafa Racing Team run car.
Brewer’s 2025 took on a surprising but pleasant twist a few weeks ago when she was confirmed in one of the DS E-TENSE FE25 Gen3 cars for the all-female test session.
“I flew out to their (DS Performance) facility near Versailles and they had another simulator there (in addition to Penske’s in the UK) as well, so I was able to do a couple sessions in that simulator,” Brewer told Formula E Notebook this week.
“To be honest, there’s no Formula E in iRacing or any sort of simulator that I can do here myself at home. The Valencia track is available, but it doesn’t have the setup with Formula E, where they have those really crazy sharp chicanes for the battery regeneration, so it’s not the same.
“You can get a little bit of a sense of it but unless you’re doing it on their simulator and their setup it’s not the same.”
Brewer is among four complete rookies that will take part in the six hours test session on Friday, October 31, and although she admits to some nerves, she’s also hotly anticipating the challenge ahead.
“I haven’t been able to really do as much prep as I’ve been hoping for, so I am going into it open-minded, a bit nervous, obviously,” she said.
“A lot of the women in this test have driven the car multiple times, like Abbi Pulling and Bianca Bustamante, so they have some decent experience.
“Some of the women have been driving this car, so I’m not going to put too much pressure on myself, I just want to learn as much as I can and really get the most out of the experience in the car,” adds Brewer.
“I’ve been doing as much prep as I possibly can for it, working out my arms a bit more for getting back into an open-wheel car.”
Brewer believes that her driving stye may suit the quirky world of Formula E, with its multi-channeled combination of efficiency and relaying of information back to the engineers in the pits.
“To be honest I think my driving style is I’m aggressive, but I feel like I know when to be conservative and plan things out,” she says.
“I think women in general are a bit more analytical in that sense than men, men are just ‘go, go, go’ which I am as well, but I do think the strategy side, it’s going to play well into my hands.
“It’s going to be cool. Again, it’s going be completely new to me, so I’m not sure if during this test I’ll be the best at conserving the battery or what the exact plan is going to be, but I do like the sense that there is a strategy behind it, and I think that could play into my driving style for sure.”
Brewer, a Colorado native who now lives in California, has been a racing fan for much of her life but she’s also a savvy presence amid the racing industry too after graduating with a business degree from the San Diego university in 2019.
She’s watched several Formula E races in her homeland so is in a perfect position to share her opinion on where the all-electric world championship should race in the future.
“Laguna Seca for sure,” she says immediately.
“I think that track is so much fun, and the Corkscrew, I think would be incredible in a Formula E car.
“Maybe, COTA and Laguna Seca are my two favourite tracks, and Road America too, but I love Laguna Seca because that’s my home track as I live in California, so I think it would be great to have them go out to there.”
You can follow Lindsay on Instagram HERE
