The Audi Schaeffler became the latest team to unveil its 2018/19 FIA Formula E Championship Gen2 car on Friday.
The German team will have the services of Lucs di Grassi and Daniel Abt once again in Season 5 to kick-off on December 15 in Saudi Arabia. Before that, they will in action in the official pre-season test at Valencia later this month.
Audi is the fourth team to reveal its new challenger after BMW Andretti, Jaguar and DS Techeetah. The all-electric series is heading towards a new start with one car per driver with more battery efficiency.
The Audi e-tron FE05 has been jointly developed by the German manufacturer and its technology partner Schaeffler as they hope to retain the manufacturers’ title from Season 4 and also win back the drivers’ title.
Audi’s Formula E Project Leader, Tristan Summerscale said: “We retained the basic concept with one gear and at the same time refined the details and manufactured all of the parts.” The emphasis for the team is to increase the efficiency of the car and the effectiveness.
Summerscale revealed that they started on the Audi e-tron FE05 project by mid-July in 2017 – even before the start of 2017/18 season – and the car was homologated by the FIA by the end of July 2018.
Audi will have four cars on track with Virgin Racing switching powertrain suppliers from DS Performance, which will help in more data for the German manufacturer to keep on developing the machinery to outdo its rivals.
Venturi: Felipe Massa & Edoardo Mortara
Jaguar Racing: Nelson Piquet Jr & Mitch Evans
Audi: Lucas di Grassi & Daniel Abt
BMW Andretti: Antonio Felix da Costa & Alexander Sims
Nissan: Sebastien Buemi & Alexander Albon
DS Techeetah: Jean-Eric Vergne & Andre Lotterer