A last minute deal to race at CUPRA Kiro and a literally bruising first race at Sao Paulo with a wrecked car was not the springboard that Pepe Marti was looking for as he went from F2 driver to Formula E hopeful.
In fact, even a few weeks before the pre-season test at Valencia last October, the team was psychologically geared up for Jake Hughes to be in the car after the Maserati MSG refugee tested at Abingdon Airfield in a car that he presumed he would compete in.
Then it all changed very quickly and Marti was fast tracked at Valencia and readied for being tossed in to the deep end.
He not only swam but he did so elegantly, gaining his first points at Mexico City with seventh and then taking points in four of the next five races. Then came Monaco where he inherited a podium. It was fairytale stuff but did it all constitutes a right decision for him to move in to Formula E in the first place?
“I’ve known for a while that it was the right decision, to be honest,” he told Formula E Notebook in London last week.
“Look at F2 this year and the way things are shaping up. I honestly think I would have gotten more out of being here than in another year of F2. I wasn’t going to be in Campos, which seems to be the leading team as well this year, so I think I took the right decision in coming here.
Marti had a decent opportunity in Super Formula this time last year and in F2 again, but it was a kind of re-invention of himself that appealed.
“Here I get a platform to grow now,” he said. “I’ve had a team that’s been very open to having a rookie and understanding what I needed to build. And obviously, they’ve given me a platform to perform, be that halfway down the (points) table but if we’d done a slightly better job in some weekends, we probably would be in the top three of the championship.”
That is a bold claim. Actually, it’s a very bonkers claim but Marti is young and full of natural optimism. He’s probably also earned a bit of leeway in his ambition too because at the end of the season he has outscored his more experienced teammate Dan Ticktum by four points despite the fact that pace wise the two have been quite a way apart mostly.
Marti is set to be confirmed as staying at CUPRA Kiro. He was tapped up by Nissan in June about a future role but that led nowhere. He’s staying in a Porsche next season, and perhaps the fact a new rules-set will begin will aid him.
“I think the car is very enjoyable on a good day, like when we’ve had a really strong car, Monaco, for example, or Sanya I feel it has been fun to drive,” said the Spaniard with the unnervingly clipped English accent.
“Whereas other weekends, we struggled a bit more. Berlin, for example, we had a very rough weekend. We just didn’t really get the hang of it for two days. It really does change how much you enjoy it in the car.
“But then again, that happens in every single-seater series. In terms of coming into the championship in the last season of Gen3, I think it’s helped me a lot to prepare for Gen4 and understand how a team behaves and works in Formula E.
“At the same time, I’ve had to play catch-up, especially at the beginning of the season, to everyone else. Because everybody knew a lot about the car before, a lot more than me, essentially.”
