There has always been a peculiar push to describe Formula E as the child of motorsport in the grander scheme of the racing landscape.
In all probability it was former FIA president Jean Todt who started this vogue. A decade on and it has already been described as a teenager. If the trend is applicable to Cupra then it is still a relative infant compared to the brands and manufacturers around it in Formula E but it seems entirely comfortable as it grows within it.
The Cupra brand was only born in 2018 and since its inception it has clearly wanted to be different and disruptive. It found its feet quickly, first in the WTCR - World Touring Car Cup but then far more successfully during the brief life of its electric sister series, the ETCR - eTouring Car World Cup, with two championship wins via Mattias Ekstrom (below) and Adrien Tambay in 2021 and 2022.
Cupra originated from Cupra Racing (previously SEAT Sport), the high-performance motorsport subsidiary of SEAT and it majored on innovative engineering including most directly electrification.
The manufacturer has a large selection of hybrid and electric products, including the first all-electric Cupra - the Born - and the all-new Coupe SUV - the Tavascan.
From a single-seater racing standpoint at the end of 2022 it entered into a partnership, mostly sponsorship-focused, in Formula E with the returning Abt organisation.
"We established kind of first sponsorship, for sure, but the technical collaboration with them, there were a few engineers involved with Abt," says Xavi Serra, the head of Cupra Racing.
"Abt and Cupra has a long-term partner relationship, not only in racing, but in road car products that continue.
"After these two seasons [2023 and 2024] it came to a point that Abt landed this deal with Lola-Yamaha, which was not in line with what Cupra could do."
Those two years with Abt are generously described by Serra as "average". In reality, 2023 was poor with uncompetitive cars produced by Mahindra. Everything was late and although the team recovered somewhat with some fine performances in 2024, particularly from Nico Mueller, the rewards were not what was expected.
As 2023 came to a conclusion, Abt entered into discussions with Porsche about becoming a second customer team alongside Andretti. From the outside it looked and felt like the perfect solution beyond Mahindra. But on the inside it wasn't a simple jigsaw.
Serra doesn't go into detail but it is presumed that intricacies within the Volkswagen collection of brands made a Porsche and Cupra connection difficult, perhaps combined with Abt being so synonymous with Audi in the past. It was a non-starter.
"It was a difficult alignment," attests Serra. "At this point in time there are lots of actors. Porsche had its own team, its own second team [Andretti] and it was not an easy fit to fit this third team."
Yet now Cupra is with Porsche, in a sense, as a dramatic deal from the newly named Kiro operation welcomed in Cupra to its ambitious new era.
The negotiations for all that to fit together will form a fascinating feature one day, and while it went to and fro in the late summer months - Serra describes it as a "very late call" - by the autumn Cupra signed up and began its second era in Formula E.
Beyond Cupra's present model in Formula E as a title partner and key ally to Kiro, it appears to be in Formula E for the long haul.
"It was positive, not great, but there is a growth plan offered and very well explained by Jeff [Dodds, Formula E CEO] and the series," says Serra.
"Formula E continues to grow, and we believe in this growth plan. So that's why we really wanted to keep our foot in it and continue to use the platform to showcase technology or to relate it to our electric products. We don't have the crystal ball for sure, but we believe that the ingredients are there to keep on growing."
Whether or not this could include Cupra becoming an all-in registered manufacturer was previously unclear, although Serra is reasonably candid when asked about the potential.
"It's not on the table today, but I couldn't rule it out completely," he says.
"Short term, it will not happen. But it will be a lot related to what's going on with the series in the future. I don't rule it out but it is not on the table today."
For the time being, Cupra appears to have patience and a degree of humility in learning the ropes in one of racing's fiercest and most competitive global series. But that doesn't mean ambition isn't there.
"We definitely have determination and even if we are not coming and creating a full team and coming in big, we prefer to come in to learn and we are humble," adds Serra.
"We have come from other series, have learned and won other series and here we are facing the big sharks and the big industry, and there is a lot of experience already here.
"The field is closer and closer and there are no big backmarkers. Our friends and colleagues from Lola-Yamaha-Abt are already there, which is good for the series that they are there. The competition is very tough, so we need time."
