Analysis: Why Di Grassi Is The Perfect Fit For Audi

McNish's retirement leaves some rather big shoes to fill at Audi. (Credit: WEC media)

Audi’s announcement on Monday that Lucas di Grassi would join reigning WEC champions Tom Kristensen and Loic Duval in the number one Audi R18 e-tron Quattro for 2014 should come as no surprise.  Choosing the successor to the newly-retired Audi stalwart Allan McNish is no small feat, but the 29 year-old Brazilian is about as qualified as they come.  

Well-renowned for his technical feedback as the official test driver for Pirelli and the new FIA Formula E series and a known quantity who is familiar to the team, having previously shared with Kristensen and shone in the third entry at Le Mans last season, di Grassi offers the ideal mix of stability, speed and reliability to give Audi a shot at defending their drivers and manufacturers titles from Toyota and Porsche. 

Upon meeting di Grassi at Le Mans last year, I was struck by his erudite manner, but also the humble reverence he held for La Sarthe, which despite all his experience on the F1 circuit was like nothing he had ever witnessed. This grounded approach should stand him in good stead this season. While there is always great expectation when representing Audi, a winner of the 24 Hours twelve times since 2000, the pressures of driving the number one car are a whole different ball game; no longer can di Grassi use the 'underdog' tag that comes with driving a part-time third car.  

Lucas di Grassi will swap the no. 3 for the no. 1 in 2014. (Credit: WEC media)

"Le Mans is a special place, so have my first Le Mans with Audi is an honour," he told me, in a crowded media session on the Thursday morning. "There is no better team to be with, and my aim is just to learn as much as I can. I have very little experience of endurance racing, especially at Le Mans, the rest is just a matter of doing my job and being as fast as possible.

"The car is so different from Formula One. When you're having the discussions about how to set up the car, over the 24 hours the car changes so much, especially at night with the temperature drop. In Formula One it was always about pure performance all the time, you don't care about what the weather is going to be like on Sunday if you're doing the race on Saturday, I just didn't have that mentality. But it makes a lot of sense, you have to have a car which gives you confidence, is nice to drive, it's a completely different mentality."

Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich has every confidence in di Grassi to reward Audi's faith in him this season and with that ringing endorsement in mind, the Brazilian will surely deliver.

Di Grassi in profile:

Lucas di Grassi first rose to prominence in 2004 with a podium finish on his first visit to the fearsome Macau Grand Prix circuit, before making a winning return on his second attempt at 2005 ahead of Robert Kubica and one Sebastien Vettel, when his new team-mate Duval was adjudged to have made a jump start.  With support from Renault, di Grassi moved to GP2 with Durango in 2006, before launching a title challenge with ART in 2007, where he finished runner-up to Timo Glock.  

Despite missing the first six races of the 2008 season, di Grassi would go on to finish third, winning three times to finish just a point shy of second-placed Bruno Senna.  His performances caught the eye of Renault and Honda, who both evaluated him for an F1 ride in 2009, although he would remain in GP2 for a fourth year, again finishing third, when Nelson Piquet Jr. and Rubens Barrichello were maintained by their respective  teams.  Di Grassi would eventually make it to Formula One at the new Virgin Racing team for 2010, but it wasn’t everything he hoped for as Nick Wirth’s exclusively CFD designed VR-01 proved highly unreliable and effectively limited him to the ‘Class B’ battle against the Lotus and HRT teams, the infamously small fuel tanks making every race a fuel economy run. Rarely running the same specification as team-mate Glock, he nevertheless was held in high regard by the team, despite crashing on the way to the grid in Japan.

Di Grassi endured a difficult F1 baptism with the struggling Virgin team. (Credit: F1 Fanatic)

With Jerome d’Ambrosio signed up for 2011, di Grassi became the chief test driver for Pirelli’s F1 programme, which put him in the frame to join Peugeot’s WEC team before the French marque’s shock decision to withdraw from motorsport ahead of the 2012 season.  Following Dindo Capello’s retirement, di Grassi was added to the Audi lineup for Brazil round of the 2012 WEC alongside Kristensen and McNish, where he impressed despite driving the slower, non-hybrid R18 ultra, and earned himself a dream contract for 2013 in the process.

After finishing second the Sebring 12 Hours, again with Kristensen and McNish, di Grassi teamed up with Oliver Jarvis and Marc Gene to take on Spa and the Le Mans 24 Hours, with back-to-back podiums confirming to Audi that the Brazilian could be relied upon.  Having now stepped down from his role as Formula E’s official test driver, di Grassi will race for Audi full-time in the World Endurance Championship in 2014.

Audi also announced that 2012 WEC champions Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler will be retained for the full season, while Filipe Albuquerque will move across from the DTM to drive a third entry at Spa and Le Mans, alongside Oliver Jarvis and Marco Bonanomi, who replaces Marc Gene.