Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler has revealed the e-tron FE05 car it will use in Season Five of the ABB FIA Formula E Championship. Hopefully, the upcoming season will start out better than last year. Although they won the constructors’ championship in Season Four, the start to the season was poor.
Audi Repeat Champions in Season Five?
The German manufacturer will field Season Three Formula E champion Lucas di Grassi and Daniel Abt for Season Five.
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The Powertrain
A statement issued by Audi explained that the e-tron FE05 is an “evolution” of the car that clinched the Formula E constructors’ championship in Season Four. It has a powertrain with “95%” new parts, while its engineers have been “able to shave 10% off the weight”.
Although they started out with some problems in the first four rounds of last season, the season four Audi powertrain was widely perceived as the most efficient in the field. That gave them a significant advantage in races over the other competitors.
Tristan Summerscale, Audi’s Formula E project leader, said the manufacturer had “retained the basic concept with one gear and at the same time refined the details and manufactured all of the parts” for the e-tron FE05.
Although it is a new powertrain, the one gear concept is derived from the original Formula E car from Season One. Obviously, it was refined year after year, but apparently, it is still the most efficient way to power a Formula E car. Teams have experimented with many concepts with many gears and sometimes even multiple motors.
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Supply and Demand
Audi will also supply the Envision Virgin Racing team with e-tron FE05 powertrains for the season. This will be the first time that Audi has entered into a customer contract with another Formula E team. Envision Virgin Racing have parted ways with DS Automobiles and hope they will improve their success with the proven Audi powertrain.
Pre-Season Testing
All of the manufacturer teams will start Season Five testing at Valencia on October 16-19. The teams will get to see how they stack up against each other during that time. They all will get to see if there is any variance in powertrain gears amongst the field. Although it will be a private testing, fans will get a glimpse of all the new manufacturer liveries in person.
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