Nissan Team Principal Tommaso Volpe believes that the Berlin E-Prix can mark a new beginning in the team’s Formula E season. Following a very successful 2024/2025 campaign, which had seen Oliver Rowland taking the championship win, up to now the current year hasn’t brought as much joy to the Japanese manufacturer.
Rowland holds three podiums, but more could have been in store
In fact, Rowland’s latest race win dates back to Tokyo last year. In spite of the three podiums collected so far, Volpe is sure that the Nissan can definitely show more potential in the upcoming rounds, starting from the Berlin E-Prix.
“Yeah unfortunately not reflected to the performance we have shown this season so far, but yes we hope that this race will sign our change of pace for the rest of the season, because for sure the first races did not show what we are able to achieve.”
A great chance of points could have been the latest race round in Madrid, in which both Rowland and teammate Norman Nato had secured great starting positions. However, it turned out to be a difficult event on both sides of the garage, with the Brit penalised with a drive through for overpower at the start, whereas Nato suffered from contact in the early laps.
The Italian Team Principal reckons that Nissan so far hasn’t been able to showcase the full extent of its potential with the reigning champion due to mistakes on both the driver and the strategical team’s side.
“Yeah we made some very fundamental mistakes, including the one that caused us a big penalty in the last race, where he had an amazing pace and he could have actually fought for the top positions. So, it was more a team [issue].”
“Overall poor management of the first six races on both sides so we were actually surprised that we were not at the level at which we’re shown to be in race strategy. Ollie preparation, time management, many elements [contributed to]last season, and so we worked hard in this gap to try to turn the season around from there.”
Nissan’s Nato as well will be on the lookout for better points finish in the upcoming Berlin Formula E round
The beginning of the 2025/2026 Formula E season was not as successful on the other side of the Nissan garage as well, with Volpe hoping that the Berlin round can mark a turning point for Nato as well.
The Frenchman has only achieved a top ten result so far in the current season, in Mexico, securing just one point to his name. Asked if there are discussions to be held with the driver, in his third season with the team, Volpe discussed the matter of his year so far, explaining the many improvements he has personally seen in the veteran driver.
“Well, I don’t think we need conversations to keep people positive. We all work in motorsport, people have to deal with the pressure of performance and we have pressure of performance in every job in Nissan.”
“I don’t see why people working in the motorsport department shouldn’t have the maturity to understand that the performance is key in everything. To be more precise, in fact, Norman came this season with a much better approach to Qualy, and he has been faster than Oliver as well.”
“So, we kind of improved many of the elements that were not working well last year. We are missing the last bit which is the one that counts, but again it is one of the areas where we have worked in the gap between Spain and Germany and we hope that also in this aspect we will show better performance here.”
