Sette Camara: Fourth F2 season "uninteresting"

Former Red Bull junior Sette Camara finished 12th, sixth and fourth in his three seasons in F2, and was tipped to be back on the grid this year, with paddock rumour linking him to the seat alongside Nikita Mazepin at the new Hitech team.

But the seat at Hitech ultimately went to Luca Ghiotto, while Sette Camara is yet to unveil a race programme for 2020 – although he has joined Formula E outfit Dragon as test and reserve driver, and drove its Penske EV-4 powertrain to second place in the Marrakesh rookie test.

Sette Camara told Motorsport.com that the Dragon role was not “directly related to not continuing in Formula 2”, adding: “It [the rookie test] is actually clashing with Bahrain [F2 pre-season testing] but, I mean, I could easily lose Bahrain days and at the end it's a deduction in the total cost of the budget, and you can still race the season.

“It was not linked, it was a few other factors which I would like to keep for myself. Not so proper to share, but I won't be continuing there because things didn't fit to be there, and also because in a way it became uninteresting for me.

“I already did three years, I already got a superlicence as well, and at some point you saturate to be in one place all the time. Might be other, better ways to race.”

Sette Camara, who served as test and development driver for McLaren in Formula 1 last year and tested for the Carlin IndyCar team at COTA in February, said the Dragon opportunity came as a surprise.

“I got an email from Jay [Penske, team owner], in November, I think it was right before Riyadh, to participate in this role, and I spoke with people in this team, and things went forward, I closed the deal with them.

“I was extremely happy, because I've always been interested in Formula E, but because the season starts at a weird time of the year, if you don't start negotiating with teams or speaking very early, let's say May, you kind of lose the window. So of course one week before [the season opener in] Riyadh I say zero chance I get offered anything, and it came from something I didn't expect.”

Sergio Sette Camara, Rookie Test Driver for GEOX Dragon, Penske EV-4

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

Sette Camara's runner-up finish in the Marrakesh test came on the heels of a difficult race weekend for Dragon, with the American outfit having just two points to its name from five FE races this season so far.

“It was my first time in a Formula E car - I'm happy, I prefer much more to be now like that than to be leaving here without a top-10 laptime, let's say. I won't say it's not a good thing, because it is.

“But it's tough to match it to the race weekends, because the whole format is different, the track was rubbered in, and I'm sure many people got traffic, mistakes - but we were there, at the end we put the lap, and if this was the format of the weekend, we would be P2.”