How very apt: the Team ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport Formula E team is, for the 2016/17 season, to become a quasi-official works outfit, with financial and technical backing from Ingolstadt. Complete with the four rings featuring prominently on the single seater bodywork. And if the team name's a bit of a mouthful for you, respite comes in 2017/18: Audi will then fully incorporate the Formula E project into its factory motorsport programme, creating a genuine works Audi Formula E effort.
It's yet another coup for the series organisers, who are currently enjoying the PR glow of bringing Jaguar back into formula motorsport. This should (hopefully) quash any chatter about Audi entering Formula 1: like Jaguar, it's betting on Formula E offering more road car relevance and mid-term bang for buck. Winning against Jaguar is seemingly more alluring than losing against Mercedes.
Audi's been savvy: by letting its DTM motorsport partner ABT Sportsline do all the groundwork over the past few seasons, it's been able to work out what's required to win. This season's step-up will undoubtedly pre-empt a full-on title challenge for 2017/18, under the watch of Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich (we can only speculate what might happen to the DTM and WEC programmes after this, of course).
Formula E has long extolled the benefits of its series to car makers fast-tracking EV development; Audi won't even launch its first full EV until 2018 yet, by 2025, aims for one in every four new cars sold to be an electric vehicle. So it's got a lot learn: why not do some of that on the racetrack?
"For the 2017/2018 season, on the road toward a fully-fledged factory commitment, Audi Sport will be joining the development step by step in close cooperation with technology partner Schaeffler," it said in a statement. "We intend to evolve into one of the leading premium car manufacturers (in electric mobility)": just like TDI and hybrid sports cars, Audi's set to go big in Formula E.
The four rings will appear on the cars for the first time at next week's Donington pre-season test (running from 5-7 September) and the cars will race for the first time on October 9 in Hong Kong.