Audi Sport has presented the new colours on their brand new Audi e-tron FE05 racer.
The car will compete in the ABB FIA Formula E Championship, where they will fight against 10 other teams. We have already seen some of the designs from their competitors.
The chassis will be the brand new Gen-2 from Spark, that all Formula E teams will have to run, while Audi sticks their own MGU03 drivetrain in the car.
The new car will put out 250kW (340bhp) in the Qualifying, and 200kW (272bhp) in race trim. Some activation zones will be introduced for this season, which will give the car 225 kW (306bhp) when they pass through these, while Fan-Boost will give the full 250/340.
Photo: Audi Communications Motorsport/Michael Kunkel
The new cars can be charged in just 45 minutes. All cars will run the same battery package from McLaren, where the package in each car weights 374 kg – which is a substantial part of the cars minimum weight of 900 kg including driver.
All cars will run the full race without car swap, so the cars have a battery capacity of 52 kWh.
A small funny part is the 0-100 kph numbers. Audi Sport says that it’s possible to do in 3,1 seconds, while Techeetah said 2,8 seconds earlier in the week. Whether one is underplaying or the other is going a bit over the top – or if there is a real difference in the acceleration between the two cars, will be known as soon as the season starts.
Audi Sport has opted for a single speed gearbox. We have seen many different solutions from various teams in the previous seasons, with everything from one to four gears. All cars have to have reverse, in case they go down an escape route.
Photo: Audi Communications Motorsport/Michael Kunkel
Lucas Di Grassi and Daniel Abt have both got the call to do their 5th season for the team. Both showed good speed throughout 2017/18, where Abt took three wins on the track, but lost one again due to a wrong barcode on the drive line in Hong Kong. He later on went on to win races in both Mexico City and his home country race in Berlin.
While Abt had the best start to the season – except the barcode incident – we saw Di Grassi really coming to life towards the end, where he managed to secured second in the Championship.
Di Grassi won the 10th and 11th races of the season in Zurich and New York respectively. That was enough for Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler to win the Teams Championship. Di Grassi didn’t manage to defend his 2016/17, but will aim for it again in the 2018/19 season.
The ABB FIA Formula E Championship 2018/19 starts on 15 December in Saudi Arabia.
