This Friday’s women’s test sessions will be a big deal for the teams as they get extra track time which will be last for the race cars before they hit the ground running at Sao Paulo in five week’s time.
Nissan has outlined how important the six hours of running will be this week as it gives Abbi Pulling more experience as part of her ongoing role as a development and simulator driver.
Pulling was the fastest driver in last years test and comes to Valencia 2025 after a competitive season in the GB3 championship with Rodin Motorsport. Taking five top six finishes and a podium at Brands Harch, Pulling ended the season inside the top ten.
Talking to Formula E Notebook last week, Nissan race director, Dorian Boisdron, emphasised the key role Pulling will have in extending the test programmes in to a fifth day for the team.
“We don’t have so many test days in FE so every single minute of track time I’m happy to use it,” said Boisdron.
“We’re going to use Valencia, as let’s say, a global test program, because we work on many features in private testing and we will have to fine tune and polish everything.
“She will have a test program which will be very current with what we will do with the drivers in the previous days.”
Overall, Pulling has spent several days at the Viry Chatillon facility south of Paris, becoming the first driver to run in the new DiL simulator, which FEN witnessed first-hand during a visit last week. This is part and parcel of Pulling’s integration in to the Formula E environment.
“The second part of the program is we are giving her the opportunity to get more experience of Formula E because it’s a very particular series,” added Boisdron.
“The energy management, the way to manage the systems, etc is super important and crucial for a driver. We want her to make progress because our plan is to use her in our simulator during season 12 to do some preparation work.
“So, the more experience we can bring her to get in the highest level, it will pay back during the season for us and clearly for her too as a rookie driver as we look for possibilities for the future.”
Could Pulling be Key Gen4 Asset?
Pulling’s recent experience in other single-seater categories could be an added asset for Nissan as it engages and readies for the Gen4 era which start in little over a year’s time.
Nissan is nearing the completion of its Gen4 test and development car at its base and is expected to test within the next 10 days before heading to the multi-manufacturer test next month.
But Boisdron is reasonably cautious when asked if Puling will be intrinsic to the project, although her place in the team is believed to be reasonably long-term.
“I don’t want to be too quick and burn wings as I think it would be a bit unfair if we directly put her in Gen4 and say okay, give us direction, give us feedback,” says Boisdron.
“We have to make sure that at least she’s comfortable and within the game for in the Gen3 environments. But at some point, of course, if you feel like the time is a good time for to switch to Gen4 then yes of course, it’s a possibility.”
