Envision Racing's Simulator and Development driver Alice Powell returned behind the wheel of a Formula E car on Tuesday and completed her testing program at the Valencia collective test.
Alice Powell returned behind the wheel of a Gen2 Formula E car after her season 6 Young Driver Test at Marrakesh and successfully completed her program for Envision Racing on Tuesday at Circuit Ricardo Tormo, Valencia.
Powell, 28, was announced as Simulator and Development Driver for the British outfit in 2021 and is working within the team on development work, race preparation and commercial activities.
Alice comes from an outstanding season in W Series, where she was runner up after an exciting duel with Jamie Chadwick until the very last race at COTA. In 2021, Powell took three race victories and five podiums out of eight races.
Having competed for victories in single-seaters since 2010 - when she became the first woman to win a Formula Renault championship - Powell kept writing history in 2012, when she was the first female racer to score points in GP3 Series. After a multiple years' hiatus imposed by a lack of funding, Alice returned to international racing thanks to W Series in 2019 and her performances in the all-female championship opened a series of opportunities for the British driver: in 2019, she entered a round in IMSA and has recently completed a test in the Richard Mille Racing LMP2 Oreca prototype in Bahrain.
With FIA Formula E starting its Season 8 collective test at Circuit Ricardo Tormo, Envision Racing welcomed Powell back in the car on Tuesday 30th November, for both the morning and afternoon's sessions.
In the morning, Alice Powell completed 42 laps around the Formula-E layout of the Spanish track, setting a best lap time of 1:31.432 - having focused on a full race simulation. Despite not running on maximum power, she went back on track in the final minutes of the session but had her best lap time cancelled for exceeding track limits. She had significantly improved both in the first and second sectors.
After the lunch break, Powell stepped back in Robin Frijns' #4 car for the afternoon session - where her main task was to get components race-ready rather than finding performance.
"No max power runs for me today, which is around about 2 seconds." - she wrote after completing 36 more laps in the second session of the day. "Lots of brake bedding and checking for the season. Even so, I loved being back out in a Formula E car!"
"A great job done by Envision Racing and hopefully we have a strong season ahead".
Her personal best of 1:29.724 put her in P21 for the day, with a theoretical best of 1:29.360.
The session was topped by Stoffel Vandoorne (Mercedes EQ-FE Team), ahead of Edoardo Mortara (ROKiT Venturi) and Jake Dennis (Avalanche Andretti). In the morning, it was Antonio Felix Da Costa to lead the timing sheets, merely 0.007 seconds faster than Nick Cassidy (Envision Racing).
Robin Frijns will return in the second Envision seat on Wednesday, as Powell is set to travel to Saudi Arabia for the first ever F1 GP in Jeddah, where she will take on media duties.
