I have always liked the technical aspects of racing and felt that understanding the engineering aspect would work in my favour. Sure enough, I managed to beat drivers who were probably more talented than me because I understood better how the car works. For me, this was always as important as the driving skills.
Probably the years that I learned the most in my racing career were in 2011-12, when I was developing the Pirelli tyres for Formula 1. We used the unraced Toyota chassis, then in 2012 the Lotus. It was the best school, driving good F1 cars, learning the intricacies of tyres and having the engineers there to exchange ideas. In Formula E now you do around 2000km a year, so I did almost five seasons worth of testing! It was very useful in the next years of my career and gave me a lot of insights I wish I’d had when I started in F1.
