Nael tops Formula E Rookie Test in Madrid

Theophile Nael marked his first outing in Formula E machinery by topping the series' annual Rookie Test in Madrid.

Driving for Mahindra, the 18-year-old Formula 3 racer and 2025 Macau Grand Prix winner set a best time of 1m29.216s in the morning session. His best of the day was 0.034s behind DS Penske's Nikita Bedrin, while Kush Maini made it two Mahindras in the top three, his afternoon time 0.114s off his teammate's best from earlier in the day. Maini, who serves as the Indian team’s reserve driver, had also gone second quickest in the morning.

Victor Martins was fourth quickest for Nissan, his best time coming in the latter session, while former Formula 1 driver Daniil Kvyat was fifth quickest for DS Penske, his morning time being 0.740s off Nael's benchmark in what was his third consecutive Rookie Test appearance.

Next up were Envision simulator driver Zak O'Sullivan and Theo Pourchaire for Citroen – the Peugeot World Endurance Championship driver having gone second quickest in the Rookie Free Practice session in Miami back in January – with Audi F1 development driver Freddie Slater eighth for Andretti.

Porsche's DTM champion Ayhancan Guven was given another run out in a Formula E car after last year’s Rookie Test and the Rookie Free Practice earlier this year, setting the ninth-fastest time of the day ahead of Callum Voisin – who caused the first red flag of the day with a spin at Turn 5 – in the other Andretti and Nissan's development driver Abbie Pulling.

Joshua Durksen was 12th for Citroen, ahead of the Lola Yamaha Abt duo of Richard Verschoor and Hugh Barter, with Cian Shields 15th for Curpa Kiro in what was his first Formula E outing.

Elia Weiss – who like Guven made his Formula E testing debut for Porsche at last year's Rookie test in Berlin – was 16th after an off at Turn 1 and a crash at Turn 3 in the morning session. He finished ahead of Indy NXT driver Bryce Aron for Jaguar TCS Racing and Bianca Bustamante for Kiro.

Ella Lloyd – who like fellow Envision runner O’Sullivan was taking part in her fourth Formula E test – and Jaguar’s Juju Noda – returning to a Formula E cockpit after the Women’s Test at the start of the season – completed the runners.

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Dominik Wilde

Dominik often jokes that he was born in the wrong country – a lover of NASCAR and IndyCar, he covered both in a past life as a junior at Autosport in the UK, but he’s spent most of his career to date covering the sliding and flying antics of the U.S.’ interpretation of rallycross. Rather fitting for a man that says he likes “seeing cars do what they’re not supposed to do”, previously worked for a car stunt show, and once even rolled a rally car with Travis Pastrana. He was also comprehensively beaten in a kart race by Sebastien Loeb once, but who hasn’t been?

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