until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
Remarkably, Robin Frijns almost cut-and-pasted a 2021 zero-to-hero Diriyah narrative right into 2022, and the eerie manner of his results was not lost on the Dutchman after an excellent second place in Saturday’s follow-up race.
That reprised his 2021 result with exactly the same car, which again appeared as hooked up as any challenger over the duration of the safety car-curtailed contest.
Last year (pictured below) Frijns had a poor first Diriyah race after struggling for grip. He even shunted his then-purple mount in free practice but 24 hours after that disappointment came rejuvenation.
He claimed pole and finished a close second to Sam Bird’s Jaguar. This though could have been even better had the race not been red-flagged early after Alex Lynn’s monster shunt.
Almost a year on and the now predominantly green hues of the Envision Audi repeated the story, with a promising first race sullied by an infamous barging match with Oliver Rowland.
That episode preceded Saturday’s heroics where Frijns started third, cut through to tail the leader but was ultimately thwarted in his pursuit by a safety car, this time triggered by another Mahindra, this time driven by Alexander Sims.
But beyond the slightly spooky similarities and coincidences, Frijns focused on the realities of his second place to Edoardo Mortara, which surprisingly came cultivated amid some rare pessimism.
“I didn’t feel confident before the race seeing what happened [the day prior], seeing that Mercedes were so strong,” he told The Race.
“Even the Venturis came through the grid quite easily and had a lot of energy left at the end.
“So, I was expecting the same, and obviously I was starting around the Mercedes cars, so at the beginning I was just trying to hang on behind Edo and not waste energy.”
But clarity soon cut through the suspicion as it became evident that the Audi could follow and even under-consume slightly. According to Frijns, the more the race was progressing, “the more confident I felt”.
“Then after 15 or 20 laps, I was really happy with the car, and I could fight.”
This he did by making a decisive move on Andre Lotterer’s Porsche on ‘220kW parity merit’ and then a ‘clean as a whistle’ move on Lucas di Grassi just before the safety car was deployed.
After the race the Brazilian insinuated that Frijns was lucky that the race ended up effectively neutralised, meaning a counter-attack was out of the question.
Di Grassi may have had a point due to a marginal better energy number, but we’ll never know for sure, just as Frijns didn’t find out if he could have beaten former team-mate Bird a year before.
What do these polar opposite results mean for Frijns and Envision Racing, in this, the last of its four seasons with Audi power?
Frijns thinks that with some luck and hard graft that he can add to his tally of two E-Prix wins, which only a fool would describe as a number commensurate with his talents.
“It’s a fact that I believe we need to get everything in a perfect scenario with the set-up and how the car reacts to be able to fight them [the Mercedes cars],” says Frijns.
“I think they have a bigger range to play with if their car is maybe not acting as they want and they can still be up front, where if we are not done with the set-up then we are out of the points.
“So, it will be a very tough season. But it gives us as a team and me personally a good boost that we are able to fight in these conditions, which I thought wasn’t the case before coming here.”
