Joshua Dürksen, the winner of the first F2 race of the season last weekend in Melbourne will take part in the Formula E Rookie Test at Jarama next Sunday.
Driving one of the two Citroen Racing entries, Dürksen will get his first experience of Formula E, at the final Gen3Evo rookie test of the era. He will be joined by Theo Pourchaire, who has driven for the MSG operated team on several occasions in the past.
Speaking to Formula E Notebook about choosing Dürksen, team principal Cyril Blais said that the Paraguayan/German dual national was “someone that we’ve been following for a little while now, and I think that last year he surprised quite a few people (in F2).
Blais also commented that he and the team had been following Dürksen “closely, and obviously now he switched (from AIX Racing to Invicta teams) in F2 you can see on his debut, in Australia, winning the sprints race.
“I think that Joshua has got some qualities and the speed is very interesting. I think that also he was quite interesting. in the last few months, we concluded that we’d be happy to have him in the car and get to work with him and start building on the relationship.”
Technically it is Citroen Racing’s first Rookie Test, but in its previous incarnation as Maserati MSG the team ran Theo Pourchaire who took part in both the Jeddah rookie free practice session in February 2025 and the Berlin rookie test also. Pourchaire has also recently driven the Stellantis Gen4 test and development car.
Stellantis has been evaluating several drivers for possible activation in the Gen4 period when it is anticipated that more F2 and F3 drivers may become more longer term propositions for teams in either driver or development roles.
“Being the last rookie test of Gen 3.5, it will be an audition, because Gen4 is just around the corner, so there may still race seats available, development drivers seats available,” said Blais.
“So, it’s obviously a good opportunity for drivers and to also assess the competition as well, so different to what you can do in private days. That explains the emphasis that’s been put by teams on the quality of the drivers for this specific test.”
Who is Joshua Dürksen?
Born in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay in South America, Dürksen has German ancestry and began his racing career in karts before embarking on a successful F4 career in 2019, winning races in the UAE and Italian series.
Dürksen’s junior career was relatively modest when he arrived in F2 via FRECA in 2024 but he won two races for AIX at Baku and Abu Dhabi on the way to claiming 10th in the final standings, finishing between Alpine F1 driver Franco Colapinto and 2026 Indycar rookie Dennis Hauger.
2025 saw Dürksen win both the first and last races of the F2 season in Melbourne and Abu Dhabi, again with AIX Racing, before he switched to the Invictus team for the present campaign in which he reprised his 2025 success at Melbourne with a sprint race victory.
Last month the 22 year-old was named by the Mercedes F1 team as a development driver, a duty he shares with Citroën rookie test teammate Theo Pourchaire.
