Abt Cupra’s sensational performance to earn a front-row lockout for the second Berlin Formula E race was partly dredged up from several dark places that have so far blighted the team’s return to the championship that it won with Audi six years ago.
The team has suffered from the lateness of its project with Cupra coming to fruition, a hand-breaking accident for Robin Frijns, plus a complete withdrawal from the Cape Town E-Prix in February due to supplier Mahindra’s suspension problems. It consequently had zero points from the first seven races.
That’s a blazing re-baptism and it is one that has taken all of the Abt organisation’s experience, belief and resolution to emerge from.
That it did so with a front-row sweep and two points for Nico Mueller’s ninth place on Sunday could be a momentum boost that will help the German team complete its aim of coming away from its comeback season with some dignity after a cataclysmic opening half.
“It is very emotional, honestly. I’ve rarely been happy with a P9 in a race but I think, today, that was all we had,” Mueller told The Race.
“We executed the race pretty much perfectly with the package we have, and the qualifying is the big highlight.”
How that transpired shocked everyone. But there were two factors. One was the high-wire acrobatics performed by Frijns and Mueller. The second was the work the team had put into the set-up of its Mahindra M9Electros.
Abt has a mighty knowledge bank of new FE supplier Hankook’s products from the firm’s DTM tyres, and while the specific rubber is plainly different between the DTM and Formula E there are still subtle secrets that it no doubt exploited.
Both Mueller and Frijns were largely undecided if Abt’s DTM experience of Hankook products in wet conditions helped specifically, but The Race understands that a combination of this knowledge and Mahindra’s test mileage at a wet Abingdon airfield last autumn was at least a small factor.
“I don’t know if DTM experience gave us an advantage,” Mueller told The Race.
“This sort of racing here is so different from anything else. I wouldn’t say so, but who knows. Maybe it’s an unconscious advantage but I would not have thought about it.”
Frijns was a little more inclined to think it helped Abt’s cause in qualifying, saying that he “definitely wouldn’t say it’s a disadvantage, I would say it’s a little advantage”.
“But everybody is driving on the same track with the same conditions pretty much, so we just executed completely and that was definitely a point to get three points.”
Mueller described his drive to ninth as like “getting the monkey off your back” and as manifesting a desire to eradicate the feeling of “the zero standing there against your name”.
“I am just happy that that is off our backs,” he added.
“We know looking ahead that we will have more tough races because the package we have is the package we have. It’s not going to be easy at all, so to at least have this out of our minds is good.”
Frijns’ pole lap was sensational. The Dutch driver lived up to his mighty reputation for having paranormal reflexes.
“100%, I didn’t believe pole was possible,” he told The Race.
“It’s no secret that we don’t have the quickest car on the grid, but in the wet the car felt good and the car was predictable.
“We have a bit of an issue in dry settings where the car feels inconsistent, unpredictable and I find it very difficult to get my head around it.
“But today it was predictable and also I like the wet, I know how to drive in the wet, so it was a good combination.
ABTsolutely phenomenal.@SABIC #BerlinEPrix pic.twitter.com/KtH7fFJXwX
— ABB FIA Formula E World Championship (@FIAFormulaE) April 23, 2023
“It was a bit emotional in the garage, honestly, because we had a huge struggle so far, we scored zero points, and to put the two cars on the front row, it’s something after seven races.”
Frijns led for the first three laps before being the first of the leading bunch to take his attack boost.
From that point on he fell away due to, in his own words, “everyone saving behind me trying to lose the lead”.
“I was then trying to save [energy] and everyone is divebombing me.”
The energy-poor Frijns then dropped further down the order, finishing a frustrated 17th. But his three points for pole coupled with Mueller’s ninth place mean Abt, though still far from competing with any other outfits in the standings, is at least out of danger of becoming only the second team in FE history (after NIO 333 in 2019/20) to go through a whole year with zero points.
Keyword: How a once-great Formula E’s team’s no-points nightmare ended