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Reigning Formula V8 3.5 champion Tom Dillmann will make his Formula E race debut in Paris next month.

Dillmann will replace Maro Engel at Venturi when the German has a clash with his Mercedes DTM programme at Lausitz.

Venturi had already used Dillmann as a Friday shakedown driver in Mexico City last month while Stephane Sarrazin was travelling back from Toyota's World Endurance Championship launch.

"This is a great opportunity and after I was in contact with Venturi the first step was getting some running at Mexico although it was very short," Dillmann told Autosport.

"But really in Mexico I learnt more from seeing how things operate in the race and how a race is run, this was really useful to experience."

Dillmann is working on being a full-time FE driver for the 2017-18 season and is known to have had initial talks with Venturi about a possible permanent role with the team.

"The aim is to do a good job for the team but also to look towards season four because I want to race full-time in the championship then," he said.

Venturi is set to use one of its allocation of filming days, where running is limited to 50km (31 miles), to give Dillmann more time in the car before Paris.

DE VRIES CONSIDERED

Autosport understands Venturi was initially close to picking McLaren Formula 1 protege and Formula 2 rookie Nyck de Vries for Paris.

De Vries has extensive mileage in an FE car having been used by Spark Technologies as a test driver in 2014 and '15.

McLaren is a Venturi development partner, and de Vries is thought likely to be one of the drivers involved in testing the new generation FE car - which will feature a McLaren Applied Technologies battery - from this autumn.