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Motor racing dynasties run almost as deep as the roots of the sport itself. The exploits of pre-war great Antonio Ascari inspired his son Alberto, who became Ferrari’s first Formula 1 world champion. In the US families like the Andrettis, Unsers and Pettys are a byword for speed and competition, they are so indelibly link to the sport.
Of course, Formula E has more than its fair share of famous names, with Nelson Piquet Jr, Bruno Senna and Nico Prost keeping up the fine tradition of their forbearers. There is another driver upholding family honour in the all-electric racing series, and while his relations may have never stood on top of an F1 podium, for Daniel Abt being surrounding by a racing environment is all he’s ever known.
“I don’t know if it was the very first time but I do remember being at a race track at the time my uncle was racing, in the STW, the German super touring car championship,” he recalls. “I can hardly remember what was going on but I was on the shoulders of my dad at the podium ceremony because I think they were winning.”
Abt’s uncle Christian was a class-winning Formula 3 driver, who moved into the world of touring car racing, winning the German STW title in 1999 before enjoying an eight-year stint in the DTM, most of them spent with the Abt Sportsline team run initially by his father Johann and then by his older brother Hans-Jurgen.
It was Johann who was first bitten by the motorsport bug, competing on bikes and in cars, and his decision to expand the family business into race car building and preparation ensured Daniel was born into a family where motor racing was a way of life.
“All I’ve ever seen is racing and cars,” he admits. “As a young kid you don’t realise what it is, so you have a different feeling for everything but it’s always been great to be a part of it. When you grow up you start to know what it means to be in racing and involved with it. I’ve always enjoyed it.”
Surrounded by cars and motorsport, it was inevitable that Abt would try his hand at karting, and from a young age there was equipment at his disposal, even if he wasn’t entirely sure what it was.
“As a kid, you go in, you drive around not knowing what’s going on but it was quite fun. And then I went to my first race and had no clue what was going on and I was by far the youngest. I was very, very slow and cautious. It was raining and all the guys that were going fast were going off and so by the end I finished third! I had no clue as I thought I was two laps down or something.”
Having shown an interest, naturally Daniel was encouraged to pursue it. But the full force of the family team wasn’t thrown behind him – there were no DTM-style transporters at the kart track, for example – in fact initially it was quite a low-key operation.
“When I was karting I had a completely separate car mechanic and someone who would take care of me but had nothing to do with the company. Most of the time I was training by myself, so I was really on my own, but I grew up faster. There was never my dad or anyone at every race weekend pushing or going crazy for me to be up front or whatever. My father of course would’ve preferred me to be racing instead of being a ballerina or something but in the end I can decide by myself. I’ve never been pushed, I had an easy childhood so I think it’s good to have that and I enjoyed it.
“To be honest, I never looked further to being a professional racing driver or earning money or whatever, I just saw it as a hobby. The point when I said I want to do that was when I was in a proper Formula car for the first time. So when I was in a Formula BMW at the time and that for me opened a completely new world. That was the point when I said alright, let’s continue doing that.”
Abt’s graduation to single-seaters and the ADAC Formel Masters series came when he was just 15 years old. Now, instead of being off on his own, he was a part of the family team.
“In karting I didn’t have contact with the racing team at all and then suddenly it was our own team. For me again, there was not that pressure. My dad was always saying to me to enjoy it. If it was not going well, he would not shout at me or get mad at me. That was really good and for me it was helpful at that time to have the family team because it was easy to work with the engineers and it was a better relationship than working somewhere completely different where you only see them at the track. So it helped me to develop but also at the time for me it was clear I could not do all my racing steps with the family team.”
Abt bagged four poles and three podium finishes during his rookie season and set him up for a title shot a year later. Eight wins made him a dominant champion and a one-off drive in the German Formula 3 Series was a toe in the water for the season to come.
For 2010, Abt left the family team and joined the famous Van Amersfoort Racing team. Under the guidance of the legendary Frits Van Amersfoort, Abt had a stellar debut season and only just missed out on the title to Tom Dillmann. A great run at the season-ending Macau Grand Prix for Signature boded well for 2011 and a move to the Euro Series, but despite four podium finishes, it was a disappointing season, so for 2012 Abt switched to the GP3 championship, where he was racing for the crack ART squad.
The championship was a thriller. Abt had a slow start to the season, but came on strong at the end. Mark Webber’s protégé Mitch Evans led the way, and heading into the final round in Monza appeared to have the title in the bag,
With nothing to lose Abt produced a storming drive in the penultimate race, winning from eighth on the grid, while Evans made a slow start from pole before running wide over the first chicane, which damaged the car and forced him out.
The meant Evans would start the sprint race in last position. If he failed to score, Abt needed to win to claim the title. The partially reversed grid, meant he started eighth and he drove another storming race, but only managed to get to second, falling just over one second and two points short of the title.
“When I entered GP3 I wanted to be successful but for me it was hard to tell what it was really like as it was a very competitive championship with good drivers. For the first half of the season I was good but not great, and then suddenly I felt more and more comfortable and started winning races and I was suddenly in the championship fight. In the second race I had to win and I finished second starting from eighth. If I look back at it, when I think about it and in Spa when I won my first race, it red flagged the race and they only gave half points. If it had only been one lap longer… But we always say that.”
Abt’s close call meant the graduation to GP2 with the team (which was badged as Lotus at the time) was the logical move. With drivers like Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Hulkenberg, ART had established itself as the dominant force in the series, but 2013 will go down as one of the most disappointing in its illustrious history.
Abt’s team-mate was James Calado, the Racing Steps Foundation-backed Brit, who’d starred in the series as a rookie and was the pre-season title favourite. Second place in the season-opener for Calado was a false dawn, and it was a tough season for him and Abt – who was hobbled by a series of technical and operational failures, which limited him to a paltry 11 points.
The decision was taken to stay for another season in the F1 support series, but with the new Hilmer team. The bad luck continued and a strong fifth at Hungary aside, there was little cheer to be had.
“My two years of GP2 were probably the worst I could’ve ever imagined and almost killed my career to be fair,” he admits. “I arrived in GP2 at a top team, and they had Calado who won three races the year before. They were definitely a championship favourite but we were all struggling with set-up and issues. I think out of 11 races, there were eight races I had issues with my car; the wheels would fall, the pit stop would be bad. Calado at that time was also suffering, because he could not repeat his performance [from the previous year].
“For me it was a disaster. You start to lose confidence, the whole relationship with the team was getting bad and so on, it was crazy. Then I swapped to Hilmer and testing was very good, even the first qualifying in Bahrain was almost pole, it was third in the end and I really thought this was going to change now, now we have the package. I personally f*cked up the first race and then after that weekend the performance was completely gone, my team-mate was going crazy and left the championship. I had another team-mate who was nowhere and I don’t know, it was just…. Like someone didn’t want me to succeed or have any success. Then it was clear to me that I had to change something. I couldn’t see any reason to stay in GP2. Even if you succeed, where do those guys go? I cannot understand the guys who stay in GP2 for five years.”
With the GP2 dream over, Abt’s career was at a crossroads. A seat with Audi in the DTM seemed like a logical next step, but the German-based series has arguably the most competitive field of drivers outside of Formula 1, and even outstanding family connections is no guarantee of a drive. However, the Abt team had secured a position as one of the 10 teams in the new FIA Formula E Championship, and an opportunity to continue in single seaters was presented.
“Well of course I was looking at what I could do. DTM was always something that I looked at but it’s not as easy as it looks. So when Formula E started I remember in Monaco we were talking, and my Dad was there and he was talking to Fred Vasseur about this project and it started and got more serious. For me, it looked like a good opportunity to make a change and I though OK, let’s do it, let’s try, but I wasn’t sure if it was good move, people were laughing at me, everyone was laughing at me, but now they’re calling me! So in the end it was a good decision in my opinion.”
In Formula E Abt has shown flashes of form – he drove an excellent race at Miami in season one to take third place and followed it up with pole position in Long Beach – but the bad luck from his GP2 days still appears to linger along with him.
“Formula E is a really tough championship and you cannot make mistakes. In Malaysia I definitely could’ve been on the podium but I had a 22-second pit stop or whatever and finished seventh. But these are things you cannot control and I don’t know why it hits me but for Lucas all four pit stops for him have been the fastest ones out of everyone’s! I don’t think my team goes against me on purpose…”
At just 23, Abt is the youngest driver in the championship, and he’s a popular figure in the paddock. His promise to sing Taylor Swift songs naked on the grid if he won FanBoost in Long Beach, was picked up across the wider media, while his Instagram account is an entertaining window into the life of being a young racing driver.
In 2015 he also branched into the world of sportscar racing, taking part in a handful of races – including the Le Mans 24 Hours for the Rebellion team. He’s followed that up with a GT programme in the ADAC GT series in an Abt Sportsline Bentley this season. So what does the future hold?
“I don’t think there’s much after Formula E for me. Where else do you want to go? There’s only DTM, WEC or F1 and at the moment. I’m really happy here. I think I’ll just continue here as you never know in motorsport anyway as things can change so fast. If I have one really good year all of a sudden and people say, ‘Oh, you’re such a good driver’. You know it changes from one day to another as it changed in 2012 after my GP3 season, I was sort of hyped and Formula 1 teams would contact me and all that stuff. Then you do one bad year in GP2 and no one knows you anymore – that’s motorsport!”