At last week's Formula E testing in Valencia, the returning Abt Cupra team unveiled ZF and Südpack as partners ahead of the new season.
As part of Abt's return to the all-electric series after one season away, the team partnered with Spanish auto manufacturer Cupra as title sponsor. The next step on Abt's journey back to Formula E was to announce ZF as their technical partner.
Speaking to select media in Valencia, team principal Thomas Biermaier said that his team was much further behind everyone else due to how late they announced their return to the series.
ZF is also responsible for the development of the powertrain in the Mahindra Racing cars, the team which supplies Abt Cupra with its powertrains. As a customer team of Mahindra, ZF stepping in as a partner for Abt Cupra is logical step.
“In the new season, Formula E is really taking off with more powerful cars and four new racetracks. We are therefore very proud that our electric ZF powertrain will be used in ABT’s return to Formula E,” says Sascha Ricanek, managing director of ZF Race Engineering.
“Even though experience shows that the grid in this series is always extremely competitive, we can hopefully achieve a lot together in the coming season.”
In addition to ZF, Abt Cupra have also brought Südpack on board, a manufacturer of high-performance films for packaging food, medical goods and non-food products. The company has already been a partner of Abt's German Touring Car Masters (DTM) team for two years.
“It’s great to see our Formula E comeback becoming a reality bit by bit,” says Hans-Jürgen Abt, chief executive of Abt. “The team gave a top performance on and off the track in Valencia – my thanks go to the entire team for all the hard work that went into making this happen over the past weeks and months.”