Français
On the RER B, Lou can't see the scenery go by. From Massy-Palaiseau, in the Essonne department of France, to Luxembourg station in the center of Paris, the young girl's eyes are riveted to her phone. The object of all her attention: a replay of the Formula 1 qualifying races in Las Vegas. But the journey is too short. "I didn't have time to see the results," says the 23-year-old, spooning whipped cream over her hot drink.
Her passion for motor racing goes back a long way. In Saint-Barth, Lou's parents weren't in the habit of napping in front of the Formula 1 on Sunday afternoons. It was at the dawn of her 21st birthday, when she was living in Toulouse for her studies, that two of her friends introduced her to this world. Lou was immediately won over. The student soon became interested in what goes on behind the scenes of Formula 1 racing. What adjustments are made between the first tests and the Grand Prix? What jobs, invisible on TV, enable prototypes to travel at over 300 km/h?
From space to tarmac
The craze is so strong that Lou can't simply relegate her passion to a hobby. She wants to be immersed in motorsport every day, in short, to make it her profession. "As my mother says, you spend too much time at work doing something you don't enjoy," she sums up with her infectious smile. But at the time, Lou had a head for space. After high school in the Gers, she enrolled at the IPSA aerospace engineering school in Toulouse. Undaunted, she took advantage of the opportunity offered by her end-of-study internship to apply for a job in the automotive sector.
After several unsurprising rejections in this niche sector, Lou was finally accepted for a six-month internship with Nissan's Formula E team. The Japanese company is one of 11 teams competing in a world championship featuring electric racing cars. Naturally social and cheerful, Lou quickly integrates into the team. She loves sharing all the events she takes part in," confirms Dorian Fitton, one of her colleagues. Lou is really passionate about motorsport, more so than many of us in the company. "
Coding and debugging
The test was transformed. Lou is extending her experience at Nissan with a four-month fixed-term contract running until December 2024. At the Viry-Châtillon site in the Essonne region, the engineer has been offered the position of Full-Stack Developer. A job she describes with a lot of English words like back end, front end or reporting, which doesn't necessarily help. "It involves developing in-house applications to automate tasks", Lou explains, such as facilitating analysis of what's happening on the track. More concretely, the engineer spends a lot of her time creating lines of code on her computer, or having applications debugged, she adds with a laugh.
Lou has a real ability to adapt," says Dorian Fitton. Her position at Nissan doesn't necessarily correspond to what she learned before, but she doesn't hesitate to go and talk to the engineers to find out what they need. "This resilience is soon put to the test. Lou has just learned that her CCD will not be renewed. But it doesn't take much to take the smile off her face. While she waits to find a new contract, Lou allows herself to dream big: she imagines herself as a performance, systems or tire engineer. Whatever the case, her dream job will take her to the track, up close and personal with the cars.
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An athletic strength enthusiast
Two or three times a week, Lou goes to the gym for a "fast" 2.5-hour session, or a classic 3.5-hour session. Her sport? Athletic strength. It involves lifting weights in three different movements. Lou, nicknamed "the tractor" by her coach, can lift up to 140 kilos in the squat, 160 kilos in the deadlift and 70 kilos in the bench press. Lou has already taken part in two competitions, during which she came first in her category (she was the only competitor).
