Mistakes and Nico Mueller were strangers in his past Formula E career. He made very few of them.
Yet, this season so far there have been plenty. Sao Paulo free practice, Jeddah when he smashed in to the back of Antonio Felix da Costa, Homestead in free practice and then in Monaco where he skated off line at Saint Devote before re-joining, only to end his race in the Massenet barriers just a few metres later.
It’s all been something of a surprise to himself and his new team Andretti. While he hasn’t quite been with Jake Dennis over the course of the first half of the season so far, factory Porsche driver Mueller has been on occasion – Mexico City and Monaco – rapid. But in combination with the errors this sporadic pace has been short of what was expected.
Perhaps those expectations were a little unfair considering that his 2024 season was so strong in a relatively uncompetitive ABT Mahindra package. Those heroics are forgotten now because Mueller has to have a stronger second half of the campaign than he did the first, and he’s quite aware of that.
The errors will hurt the methodical, calm and analytical Swiss, who when asked about them was as open and honest as ever.
“I’m not sure what exactly contributes to it,” he told Formula E Notebook in Tokyo.
“I think obviously the wet is a world of its own. You know, with these cars the grip level overall is extremely low. The cars are obviously very sensitive to how you set the brake software up and the tyre doesn’t like slip, in general.
“In the wet, it’s even more sensitive. So maybe that is one part and then the style of racing is now kind of known to people. They know when they really have to maximize certain situations and probably go more aggressive, so it becomes even more intense in certain phases, which then maybe leads to more contact at some points.”
These are all very plausible points from Mueller, and so too is the fact that the grid has concertinaed up notably this season, as the All-Wheel-Drive gives much more open strategy calls.
Mueller doesn’t see “one standout factor that the car suddenly has become more unforgiving” but he does feel that “the field has moved so close together that everybody knows that you have to actually nail a quail lap to even be in the mix, not just talking about being at the very front, but let’s say, if you put together just an average lap where you feel like you’ve left some on the table, you’re very quickly at the very back.
“The level is very, very high that you really need to be on top of your game, together with your engineers, to put the car into the pack, into the window where it can perform. And then, as a driver, you need to execute perfectly to have a chance. It’s just so ultra-competitive.”
Why Tyre Knowledge is Still Sought
Mueller has a deserved reputation for being something of a ‘rubber whisperer’, a trait he gained mostly in DTM a championship that Hankook was also the sole supplier in. Some of, not all, his performances with ABT last season derived from his hard work and skill in reading the grip levels and the narrow temperature windows needed to extract the best from the rubber.
“I will be bluffing if I would be saying that I feel like we are 100% on top of it (Gen3Evo spec Hankook’s).
Actually, the change in terms of the tyres, I think, was bigger than personally, I anticipated, and maybe some in the paddock agree too. It changes the feeling of the car quite a lot, and obviously changes the dynamic of the build-up of a weekend a lot as well, because now the tyre is peaky in terms of its behaviour
With two sets of tyres there is so little opportunity for the drivers to really explore the rubber. On a double header weekend, it’s a little bit easier for the second day because drivers have had some sort of a feel already. It’s all in marked contrast to last season despite the fact that there is 20 extra minutes of free practice this season.
“Last year, basically every push lap in a practice session, you kind of had a very similar potential from the tyre available to you, Whereas now it’s in terms of its peak performance when it’s new,” said Mueller.
“It’s obviously in a better window, but also more sensitive to falling out of the window when it gets too hot.
The absolute performance is better, but it’s available to you for only a very limited amount of time. So, especially when you don’t have any testing outside of the official tests and stuff to get a feel for that quickly is not easy and I feel like I’m still building up to that and learning it.”
