Fenestrasz: Lando and I didn’t lead the healthiest lifestyle

This year, Sasha Fenestrasz will drive in Formula E for the factory Nissan team, which I am very happy about, but once, in 2018, when he was still racing in the youth series, he rented a small apartment in the British town of Guildford with Lando Norris.

The French driver thinks back to that period with a smile and tells what kind of life they led then.

“Lando had the Weetabix boxes distributed all over the house, and one of them even had a personalized box, because this company made such a box just for him,” Fenestrasz told the Daily Star tabloid. “He wasn’t the neatest man I ever met, but we still laugh when we think about it.

I will not say that we led the healthiest lifestyle, because we raced on the simulator all day, played various games all day. But at the same time we did a lot of physical training with our coach. In general, we played and trained, it was fun – not a life, but a dream!

I remember the summer was very hot then, but Lando always said one thing: “We don’t need air conditioning, next week it will be colder and it will rain again.”

But the heat did not go away for a long time, and when we finally decided to purchase air conditioning, it turned out that it was already sold out everywhere. Therefore, the apartment was a real steam bath. But when we shared that place with Lando, we always had a good relationship, we had fun.”

It seems that Fenestrasz’s career is reaching a new level: next weekend in Mexico City he will start the first race of the new Formula E season behind the wheel of a Nissan car, and in fact a few years ago he almost gave on motorsport.

After a failed season in European Formula 3, Sasha lost his place in the Renault Racing Academy and had to move to Tokyo to continue racing.

“Psychologically it was very difficult for me because in 2017 I became European Formula Renault champion and then I missed the opportunity to continue my career with Renault,” recalled Fenestras. “I didn’t have the money to keep racing. I was very close to the end of my career.

But performing in Japan is much cheaper. Friends suggested that there would be great opportunities for me in Japan if I succeeded there. I went there, and that year was really very successful. In 2019 I became champion after the results of my debut season in Japanese F3, although I didn’t play for the best team. At the end of that year I became a Toyota factory driver, which has always been my dream. At the age of 19 I got a fresh start in my career, so going to Japan was a great decision.”

In the previous two seasons in Formula E, Fenestrasz served as a reserve driver for the factory Jaguar team, allowing him to move to Nissan.

He hopes that in the future this will allow him to move closer to his cherished dream – to become a Formula 1 racer: “Who knows, maybe thanks to Formula E performance I can get closer to my main goal – breaking into Formula 1. As for the electric series, then I know that if everything goes well I can win the title, it will be very cool and help to continue my career.