Replacing Nyck de Vries this weekend, Felipe Drugovich will compete for Mahindra Racing at the Berlin E-Prix. The 25-year-old feels good and believes to have joined the Formula E team at the right time.
Drugovich feels good for Formula E debut with Mahindra
Asked by Pit Debrief in the media pen on how he feels regarding the upcoming Berlin E-Prix and his debut, Drugovich explained that he has a good feeling. The Brazilian believes that Mahindra is happy with him but adds that there needs to be a lot of learnings.
“It feels really well, it feels really good. I think people are happy with me in the team. I’m enjoying it, it’s something that I’ve looked forward to do.”
He also described the differences he will encounter while actually racing with the Indian team.”Testing is quite different from racing in this car, there’s a lot of stuff we need to learn and new things. It’s been a good learning curve, and hopefully we can keep this going.”
Drugovich on FE debut: Right time to join the team
The Mahindra team improved over the past couple of races. With Drugovich now taking de Vries’s seat, he believes that he joined at the right time. As he knows Berlin, he hopes to get up to speed quickly.
“I think it’s a good place and time to join the team. They’ve done pretty well the whole year, especially last race, so I think they are going uphill, which is nice“, Drugovich said.
“It’s a good place also because I’ve driven here before, even though it’s changed a little bit the track, but it’s quite close to what I know. I feel quite comfortable to drive, as I said racing is quite different, so for the racing part I need to still wait and see a little bit, but I’m enjoying it.”
Drugovich hopes to get up to speed from the get-go: “Hopefully! I think that’s the main goal, I’ll see, but yeah, I think yes.”
Not many differences between Aston Martin F1 and Mahindra
Drugovich serves as reserve driver of the Aston Martin F1 team. Despite the size of Aston Martin, he says that there wouldn’t be many differences between the F1 team and Mahindra: “To be fair, they are really professional, so it’s something that is not too different. Obviously in F1 you get a lot more people, but the actual type of working and approach is pretty similar.”
Going into the Berlin E-Prix, Mahindra got 121 points to their name. The team is close to McLaren and DS Penske.
