After clinching the Teams' Championship in the final race of Season Four at the New York City E-Prix, Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler has unveiled its all-new Gen2 FE05 car ahead of the start of Formula E's fifth season of competition.
Audi, who entered Season Four as the firm favourites for both the Drivers' and Teams' Championships, endured a difficult and turbulent campaign, with reliability problems over the first half of the season minimising the German marque's points intake before a resurgence in Mexico City propelled the team to the front of the field.
With the 2017/18 FE04 Formula E car arguably being one of the most efficient cars on the Season Four grid, Audi's FE05 machine is an evolution of this design, with 95% of the parts of the drivetrain being new while it is also 10% lighter having been under development since as early as mid-2017.
“We retained the basic concept with one gear and at the same time refined the details and manufactured all of the parts,” explained Tristan Summerscale, Formula E Project Leader at Audi.
The Audi e-tron FE05 car will be driven by Lucas di Grassi and Daniel Abt, with the team maintaining its driver lineup of the past four seasons of Formula E, allowing the squad to carry stability and experience into the all-electric single seater series' next generation of racing.
With aggressive aerodynamics and a sleek and revolutionary exterior, the Gen2 car marks a revolution in motorsport, marking a clear step-up in performance when compared to the Spark SRT 01E chassis of Formula E's first generation.
Featuring a battery pack developed by McLaren Applied Technologies, the Gen2 can complete a full-race of 45 minutes on one charge unlike its predecessor, removing the need for the previously mandatory mid-race car swap of Seasons One-Four while an increased power output means that Formula E will be faster than it has ever been before.
Pre-season testing for the 2019/20 campaign is set to commence on October 16 with a three-day test at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Valencia, Spain, where teams will get the final chance to iron out any problems ahead of the first race of the season on December 15 in Saudi Arabia.
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