Racing teams need targets, and Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler is no exception. These can be as simple as just knowing where we are going to race and when. Now it’s confirmed that Formula E will be back in action in Berlin for the beginning of August, which gives us a target, but it’s a very tough one for all of the teams.

We have six races in nine days, pretty much half a season crammed in to just over a week, so it’s going to be very intense indeed. It would be tough at any time, but it will be doubly so with the restrictions we have to work inside the Tempelhof facility. The most significant of these is the limit of the number of people in the team able to be in the circuit; we are down to 21 people, which includes the two race drivers.

We have the same number of practice sessions and qualifying sessions and races as we would have done if we had three normal double-headers. And double-headers, more for the mechanics than anybody else, are really demanding mentally and physically. Because we’re going to Berlin with a reduced number of people, and we are also trying to cram in six races in nine days, we have to do a lot of preparation in advance of the race week.

There’s just no other way to do it. The workload doesn’t change because you suddenly have less people or less time. It’s just more energy intense. But there’s definitely a big opportunity for a shake-up. We are sixth in the teams’ standings, but we are very close to third, and in the drivers’ table Lucas di Grassi is fifth, 29 points off the lead. I think if it was a standard season, it would be much tougher to claw back that lost ground, as it would be more logical and regimented. Thinking back in the past to slightly bizarre races, we’ve quite often come out of those pretty well. I’m actually really looking forward to it, because it’s a massive shake up and new situation for everyone. In past Berlin races, certain teams like Nissan edams and Mahindra have been extremely good, but on the other hand it’s not been the strongest of events for some of the other teams. So, there is some opportunity there and we’ll try to take advantage of it.

“René is jumping into a very difficult and different situation”

Another challenge we face is getting a new driver up to speed in the form of René Rast. Choosing René to fill the seat previously occupied by Daniel Abt was logical in quite a few ways. One is that he is already an Audi driver in the DTM, so he knows the people in the organisation, he knows the systems, he knows the way we work. In that respect the whole set-up is reasonably ‘plug-and-play’ with him. Plus, he’s been very good in all the other categories he’s done. I remember René turning up with the Audi Le Mans programme in 2014, and he was fairly unknown then; he had won titles in Porsche Supercup but he had never raced at that level. When he jumped in, I remember because I was helping a bit with the third car at Le Mans at the time, he came straight out of the car, with a level of downforce and performance he had never experienced before, and his detailed, thoughtful, logical processing of information was extremely good. Since then he has developed technically very well, gained in confidence and scored a lot of victories and two titles in DTM.

Saying all that, René is jumping into a very difficult and different situation. He’s going to get very limited running in the car before he gets to Berlin. Remember that all testing from now is also season seven (2020-21) testing, so it’s not like we can just do four or five days of testing to help him, because it would compromise the whole programme. We understand and expect that it’s going to be hard for him. He is getting into the end of the season when the majority of the drivers are totally up to speed, and they’ve raced at Berlin before. They’ve also had this season with their teams, learning the set-up and the little instinctive things that you only feel when you drive the car. These include the systems, which are completely new, the way the tyres react and how you build the tyres and brakes up for a qualifying lap. So, I’m not expecting him to be competitive straight away. I don’t think it’s fair to expect him to get major points. We’ve got Lucas for that, who is fifth in the championship.

For the drivers it will be very intense and emotionally stressful. It will be about holding your nerve and I’m sure the championship order now is not going to be the same on August 13. But I don’t know which way it’ll go, which gives the whole thing an interesting feel, which is what Formula E thrives on. It will be a very tough end to the season like we’ve never seen before. That’s partly because the 2019/20 campaign, with the break in the middle, is a season like we’ve obviously never seen.

It’s going to be a very hard process to go through to end this strange season. But I very much believe that whoever comes out as the drivers’ champion and the teams’ champion will fully deserve it.

You have to take in to account the beginning of the year, the big pause and the lockdown period, and a very intense restart.

It’s a bit like having a safety car with six laps to go, and now it’s the absolute sprint to the end and everybody is going to be fully focused on those six laps and making up every little piece of track position and points that they can. There is a lot at stake, not just the titles themselves, but the entire points table is very tightly packed from top to bottom. There are 288 points available to each team, if you get all the points available – fastest in qualifying group stages, first and second in a race, pole, and fastest lap. There is everything to play for and the run to the chequered flag is anything but certain.

 

Allan McNish is the Team Principal of Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler Formula E Team as well as being a three-time Le Mans winner.