There will be something old and something new at Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler, when the second round of this season’s ABB FIA Formula E Championship will be run in Marrakesh this weekend.
There is nothing new amongst the racing drivers, where 2016/17 Champion Lucas Di Grassi and the double 2017/18 race winner Daniel Abt will pilot the cars. But there will be a Rookie test this Sunday, where all current and previous Formula E drivers aren’t allowed to participate. So Audi needs to find two new guys for that test.
Nico Müller is one of them, and he is starting to be a bit of a regular at Audi, when it comes to testing. He was also in the car in Ad Diriyah a month ago, when the first Sunday test was run. Müller was the only driver to test for Audi at that occasion. That might have been a bit too cocky from Audi, thinking that one driver would be enough to get through the full testing programme.
The race, however, showed that Audi lacked a lot of speed, and finished as only 6th best constructor. So they have called up some reinforcements for Morocco.
Photo: ABB FIA Formula E/Sam Bloxham / LAT
DTM veteran Jamie Green got the call. Green hasn’t been in a single seater since 2004, where he won the Formula 3 Euro Series Championship, and was then picked up by Mercedes-AMG for the DTM programme. He got a whole bunch of 4th, 5th, 6th and a single 7th finishing position in the championship, before claiming third in 2012.
The Brit then switched to Audi Sport, where he had a really tough intro for the first pair of seasons. He then went on the finish second, third and third in 2015, 2016 and 2017. The 2018 season was a season to forget, with him finishing dead last in the championship. It was a really hard season for Audi, and that resulted him often ending up in the midfield battles, with quite a lot of damage to his car. He has, however, been retained for the 2019 season, just like all the other 2018 Audi DTM drivers.
Audi Sport also delivers cars to Envision Virgin Racing this season, and they finished on top of the test last month. That might bring some hope to Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler, with the possibility to improve last years results – DNF for Lucas Di Grassi and P10 for Daniel Abt.
The Marrakesh ePrix will be run this Saturday on 12 January, while the Rookie test will be run the following day.
