Credit: Simon Galloway courtesy of FIA Formula E
Robin Frijns has “high hopes” for season 10 after performing well in pre-season testing last week, whilst he even won a mock-race.
Last week’s official Formula E test at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia marked the start of Frijns’ return to Envision Racing, having initially left the side at the conclusion of season eight to join the ABT CUPRA Formula E Team.
It certainly hasn’t taken the Dutchman long to settle back into the Silverstone-based squad, as he was a regular amongst the leading places in each session. Frijns was one of 19 drivers to lap quicker than Maximilian Günther did in testing ahead of season nine, which the German topped.
Frijns was often at the back in the most recent campaign and is clearly hungry to return to the front, something he proved by winning the ‘race sim’. Last Friday morning, a mock-race took place to trial how the reintroduction of pit-stops would affect the racing, whilst Safety Cars and full-course yellows also featured.
The 32-year-old claimed the win ahead of António Félix da Costa. In the regular sessions, Frijns finished fourth on the timesheets on both Thursday and Friday, with him clearly having required no time at all to adjust to the superior Jaguar powertrain. Frijns used Mahindra’s lacklustre powertrain last season, as ABT CUPRA are the Indian manufacturer’s customer side.
One-lap pace isn’t a problem for Frijns, although one concern could potentially be that he was just one of seven regular Formula E drivers not to surpass 200 laps in the test. Frijns’ total number of laps for the week was 198, whereas Envision partner Sébastian Buemi completed 276 – the most of any driver.
Nevertheless, things are looking extremely positive for Frijns ahead of the season 10 opener in January, with the mock-race win having given him and the team a “good feeling”.
“It’s been a pretty good week for us,” Frijns said. “It’s been a hectic one as well, at the beginning, but we’ve now finished a good two days of testing.
“We did the race sim at the beginning of Friday and we won that – it does not mean anything really but it’s still a good feeling and good to travel to Mexico [for the opening race of the season] with this ‘victory’. It gives us a good feeling.
“At the end the pace [of the car] was not bad either, we were always in the top five overall. We are working well within the team so we have high hopes for next season.”
Keyword: Testing leaves Frijns with ‘high hopes’ for season 10