Dragon Racing has announced the names of the two drivers, whom they will give a chance in the upcoming rookie test in Marrakesh, Morocco on 14 January.
German driver Maximilian Günther and Andrea Caldarelli from Italy will have the opportunity to test the Penske EV-2 car, on the day after the third round of the FIA Formula E Championship will be run. The two full season drivers, Neel Jani and Jerome D’Ambrosio, will hand over car #6 and #7 to the two young drivers.
20 year-old Günther has raced in the FIA European Formula 3 Championship for the past three seasons with a P2 and P3 during the last two seasons. Prior to that, he finished second in both the Formula BMW and two seasons of the ADAC Formula Masters. So he still owes his first championship in single-seaters, but has been oh so close for the past 5 out of 6 seasons. He was chosen as ADAC Junior-Motorsportler des Jahres in 2016. He has been test- and reserve driver for Mercedes in DTM, which could end up with him being a full season drive in 2018, since Mercedes needs at least one driver, following Robert Wickens going to IndyCar.
Photo: LAT/Formula E
Caldarelli is 27 years old, but has already tried a bit of everything in racing. He has been test driver for both Toyota and Ferrari in Formula 1 and has been driving GP2 and GP3, before moving to Japan to participate in the Formula Nippon / Super Formula series. He hasn’t had much luck in the single-seaters, but the focus was quickly pointed towards Super GT in Japan instead. Since 2014 he has finished 2nd, 5th, 2nd and 3rd in the Championship for Lexus.
All Formula E teams will have to field two drivers, who hasn’t previously raced in a Formula E race, and Audi, Techeetah and the Andretti teams have already named their drivers, so we are only waiting for the remaining 6 teams.
