FE | ABT Cupra: podium missed, but fourth place is worth a victory

After five seasons in Rome, starting this year Formula E has abandoned the Italian capital to embrace a new location, Misano. What changed was not only the location, but also the type of track, because from a circuit with a city soul like Rome we moved to a permanent track with numerous extensions, aspects which in the world of fully electric racing represent a challenge for drivers and engineers.

Precisely because of this nature, just like Portland in the past season, Misano also proved to be an unpredictable and difficult race to decipher until the final stages, with continuous exchanges of positions even at the front of the race. The choice to reduce the race distance by 2 laps on the second day of the weekend compared to Saturday, while still being able to use the same amount of energy, allowed us to witness a less chaotic ePrix, from which Abt Cupra emerged with a fourth place just 50 thousandths from the podium, which however almost has the flavor of a small victory.

Paradoxically, racing on a permanent track can be both an advantage and a disadvantage for certain teams. On the one hand, a circuit like Misano highlights the energy efficiency problems that some Powertrains suffer from, but on the other, Gen 3 has increasingly pushed teams to tackle certain races in groups, like in a cycling race . The ideal scenario would be to remain in the leading group, but without taking the lead of the race, in order to exploit the wake of the rivals and save battery and then attack a few laps from the end.

The Powertrain question

Therefore, despite a deficit in terms of energy management which in some way tends to emerge, races like those at Misano can also represent an opportunity for teams that do not have a particularly efficient Powertrain. The main examples over the last weekend were those of ERT and ABT Cupra. In Saturday's race, the British team opted for a wait-and-see race with an extreme strategy, remaining at the back of the group for most of the race in order to save the energy that was then used for the final assault, so much so as to bring the cars in the top ten.

Equally interesting, however, is also the ABT Cupra weekend, which demonstrates how important the work done behind the scenes is to make the most of the various opportunities. In both events of the weekend, Nico Mueller was able to gain a position in the top 5 on the starting grid, demonstrating his effectiveness in qualifying, where the efficiency of the Powertrain matters less. Furthermore, some set-up choices helped to get the best out of the car in high-grip conditions, given that the asphalt tends to provide less grip on city streets.

Not developing the engine in-house, at the beginning of Gen 3 Abt Cupra had decided to rely on Mahindra as a supplier: a choice mainly due to a question of timing, given that the team had been rebuilt in a short time after Audi's farewell . However, the Indian manufacturer was also going through a complex period at that time between the management reshuffle, delays from external suppliers and various reliability problems which slowed down the project, forcing Mahindra engineers into a race against time to approve the unit.

The powertrain is supplied by Mahindra, which collaborates with ZF: however, each team can make a difference by working on the software independently

Photo by: Gianluca D'Alessandro

In the end, an overweight Powertrain emerged which, according to what Motorsport.com has learned, costs at least a tenth of performance compared to its rivals, but is also not very energy efficient over long distances.

It is also this aspect that had a negative impact on Mueller's ePrix on Saturday: after being sucked into the group in the early stages of the race, the Swiss driver struggled in battery management, slipping out of the top ten despite an excellent fifth position on the grid. Lucas di Grassi took advantage of this and, despite starting from a further back position, took advantage of various scenarios and the disqualifications of two opponents to score his first point of the season.

The importance of working on software

From different points of view, both Mueller and Abt Cupra were two pleasant surprises during this 2024. In the first year of Gen 3, the German team paid for both the Powertrain issue but also the fact of having set up the entire project in a very short time after a year of absence from the category.

In the past, at the time of the collaboration with Audi during Gen 2, Abt was used to winning, or at least in a position to try, so it is not surprising that, once certain aspects were fixed, it was able to create a solid operational base. Undoubtedly, certain limits are still evident, but on the other hand the progress made in recent months has allowed us to take a leap forward and fight more consistently to try and grab some points.

ABT Cupra

Photo by: Cupra

This appears even more evident by making a comparison with Mahindra: as per the regulations, both the official team and the customer teams have the same material at the hardware level, but each team has the freedom to work with a certain autonomy on the software, even if starting from a common base provided by the manufacturer.

Between Abt Cupra and Mahindra this difference in terms of code is around 15%. Although it may seem like a small figure, it actually touches on some critical points that really make a difference on the stopwatch, including the management of regeneration and braking. Precisely on this issue, the German team has worked very well in the last year and it is no coincidence that on several occasions it has been able to precede the Indian team, just like in Misano.

Redemption on Sunday just a whisker away from the podium

Over the course of the season the team was not always rewarded for what it built in qualifying, but on the shores of the Adriatic Sea it was finally able to materialize not only thanks to the point obtained by di Grassi on Saturday, but also thanks to the splendid fourth place achieved from Mueller to Sunday, with the podium just 50 thousandths away.

After starting from fourth place at the start, the Swiss driver also took the lead of the race on a few occasions but, even more importantly, during the race he was not sucked into the group, managing to maintain himself in the top positions. Undoubtedly the two laps less than on Saturday helped to reduce the importance of the efficiency issue, allowing the drivers to save less energy and Mueller himself to compete for the first places with greater continuity.

The Abt Cupra Control Room where the team can follow the race and check the data

Photo by: Cupra

“It was a weekend that was almost like a victory, twice in qualifying duels, I started twice in the front rows and almost got on the podium on Sunday. We learned the lesson from Saturday and on Sunday we worked much better as a team. The guys from the garage did an excellent job guiding me during the race,” explained Mueller after the race, also underlining the work carried out behind the scenes by the engineers, who, based on the data obtained from the car, provided various suggestions during the race on how to optimize energy management or when to use Attack Mode.

In fact, the team is informed by the driver himself who reads the values ​​on the dashboard indicated by the software via a code, which is then transmitted by the driver via radio and deciphered by the engineers in the garage, who use those data to study the various strategies as best as possible .

“Today we won a fourth position rather than lost the podium, doing the best with the package we have. We know we don't have the efficiency of Porsche or Jaguar, but we tried. Of course a trophy and some champagne would have been perfect, but I go home with a good feeling,” added a visibly satisfied Mueller.