Has Nico Mueller simply fallen upwards at Porsche, or is he getting a much-deserved chance at a major manufacturer in Formula E?
On the evidence of his recent history in Formula E, it feels like a bit of both right now, although the belief shown in him by Porsche appears to have negotiated a major hurdle after several other drivers were contacted for talks about the seat that is now officially his.
Mueller will join 2024 champion Pascal Wehrlein at the team with immediate effect in readiness for the new Formula E season, which starts in December. The Race has learned that he shook down a factory Porsche 99X Electric last week.
The 33-year-old is well-known to Porsche through several key figures at the team, including director of motorsport for Formula E, Florian Modlinger, who knew Mueller when he was technical director at Abt in the DTM.
Mueller arrives at Porsche after a generally disappointing campaign with Porsche customer Andretti last season. His best results came with two fourth places at Homestead and Jakarta.
While the first half of Mueller's season was punctuated by a swath of accidents, the second half was much more consistent and he was able to out-qualify team-mate Jake Dennis in six of the eight races in the final eight events.
In Porsche's collective mind, and certainly Modlinger's, this would have given renewed confidence to a faltering image after his initial Andretti travails.
The team assumes that the pale shadow of Mueller's first half of last season was an anomaly, one that it will partly attribute to Andretti's trope of being a one-driver team.
Some of the methods in Porsche's decision to promote Mueller will undoubtedly be his attributes in assisting the team from a technical perspective for the upcoming Gen4 ruleset.
Like all manufacturers, Porsche has received the vast majority of its hardware for its manufacturer test car, which will begin testing in November. Mueller will be a key part of this early development phase along with Wehrlein.
Whether Mueller is part of Mueller's long-term plans or not is up for debate right now and will likely be based around the results gained in his first season and how he stacks up against Wehrelin.
That task will not be an easy one as Wehrlein is one of the few drivers who appears to be so intrinsically and umbilically linked to Porsche that any weak points in his armoury are tough to find, let alone expose.
Who else did Porsche look at?
In a brief period during August and early September, Porsche was not completely affixed to Mueller and kept some options open regarding Wehrlein's team-mate.
Speaking to The Race upon Mueller's promotion to the factory Formula E team, team leader Florian Modlinger said that a combination of da Costa's extrication from the team in August and the finalisation of winning both the teams' and manufacturers' titles contributed to what is a relatively late announcement of Mueller joining Wehrlein.
"First of all, we were in a race season where we had to deliver the results of what we wanted to achieve," he said.
"After that we sat properly, together with Antonio, and saw what the future could bring, or how it could look like if we separate. This was the main focus, first of all, and in the background, since one year, we have Nico Mueller already contracted, and he was running in Andretti in our customer team.
"So, I think it was a logical decision if Antonio moves on and we separate with him, that Nico is clearly one of the highest candidates for this cockpit."
Mitch Evans, Robin Frijns and Jake Hughes were all contacted but the first two decided to stick with the remainder of a Jaguar contract and stick with BMW in the World Endurance Championship respectively, while Hughes still has a chance of driving for the Porsche customer Cupra Kiro team.
Even prior to that other drivers were considered. But whether Dan Ticktum was ever a serious possibility is open to debate.
Formally and officially, Porsche dismissed it. But Ticktum himself has stated that there had been some contact. Certainly, the Jakarta E-Prix winner and driver for Porsche's customer team Cupra Kiro has won influential new fans at Weissach, the Porsche facility he uses regularly for race preparation.
Then there was a flirtation with Oliver Rowland, which The Race reported in June.
The reigning champion was in the middle of contract extension talks with Nissan at the time and there could have been an element of leverage; who knows? But the word was that, at a certain stage, the possibility of a straight Rowland and da Costa swap might be of interest to all parties. It quickly faded.
All the while Porsche had its future driver right under its nose and it knew it had a competent and experienced stand-in. Mueller having experience, and an unflappable and apolitical persona, would certainly have positioned him as a dependable and strong holding card in an occasional fraught game of driver market poker.
The questions will now move on to whether Mueller can continue with Wehrlein for the Gen4 era, which will begin in a racing context in late 2026.
With a proven winning package, the emphasis will be on Mueller to deliver on the buzz that he created with his outstanding 2024 performances, rather than the generally mediocre results produced in the majority of his 2025 Andretti days.
