Nissan has expanded its Formula E engineering team by adding two major technical staff.
This comes as the manufacturer acquired sole ownership of the Formula E team that it had previously shared with the e.dams organization over a year ago.
Theophile Gouzin, a former technical director for Spark Racing Technology, has recently joined the French-based outfit. Additionally, Cristina Maas Fernández, who was Mitch Evans’ performance engineer at Jaguar for four seasons, will be working alongside him.
Gouzin left Spark earlier this year and briefly worked as a consultant for Dilbagh Gill, the former team head of Mahindra, and his up-and-coming electric junior series, ACE Electric.
Prior to that, he was the primary architect of Spark’s participation in Formula E, having led the design and development of the Gen1 and Gen2 cars in addition to playing a crucial role in the Extreme E project.
Theophile Gouzin has substantial team experience before joining Spark with ART GP and the OAK Racing organisation in single-seaters and sportscars, respectively, between 2003 and 2012.
He will collaborate with the team’s current technical program director, Vincent Gaillardot, who has been with Nissan since the team began racing as Renault in 2014.
Nissan Motorsport’s managing director Tommaso Volpe explained the hiring of Theophile Gouzin to The Race by saying that while Gaillardot will continue to focus on upcoming technological advancements, the team’s new hire would have more immediate engineering duties.
Nissan uses the Alpine Motorsport facility at Viry-Chatillon, which is close to its Paris offices, and has gradually assembled a squad that is largely made up of new members.
For the past few years, Volpe has oversaw the development of the present Nissan e.dams team, replacing some departing employees and elevating others, like current team director Dorian Boisdron.
“Vincent is more focused on the long term on the car side if we are going to Gen4, whilst Theo swill be more involved in the short-term development,” Volpe said.
“We know there are some areas where we wanted to reinforce the team… We lost some key talent in the past, and we are determined to rebuild the team as strongly as possible.”
“Theo is one of the top talents out there that is available. So, we are very happy that we finally convinced him to come.
“He will definitely be involved as a head of track engineering, so he will come to races.
“Theo will be reporting to Dorian of course, as a team director. But because of his skills, we imagine involving him in some development in the future as well and development on the team side because he has a very complete talent and profile.”
Volpe was unable to confirm the terms of Maas Fernández’s hiring, although rumours indicate that she would join the team in the coming weeks as head of performance.
She was described as a significant member of the Jaguar TCS Racing team for the last five years by Jaguar, which acknowledged her departure from the team and paid tribute to her time there.
“She has been instrumental to both the team and Mitch’s success and together we have seen some great results,” a statement from Jaguar read.
“Cristina has decided to leave the team to pursue a new opportunity,”
“The whole team thanks Cristina for her positive contribution to the Jaguar TCS Racing team and we wish her all the best for the future.”
Former Red Bull and Haas engineer Matthew Curran has taken over Manas Fernández’s position at Jaguar TCS Racing. He participated in his first race in the position when Jaguar won in São Paulo last month.
