Lola is set to part ways with the Abt organisation at the end of the current Formula E season.
The Race has learned that the separation was communicated by Lola to Abt last week as part of a plan by the British marque to make its Formula E entry a more centralised, in-house operation.
The move will still be seen as something of a surprise, as the decision comes just 18 races into its partnership which was announced in April 2024 and debuted at the Sao Paulo E-Prix that December.
Confirming the plans, Lola's motorsport director Mark Preston told The Race: "With the continued growth of the organisation, long-term commitment to Formula E and additional projects in the pipeline, Lola Cars has made the decision to consolidate its Formula E operations in-house at our Silverstone HQ.
"This will enable us to streamline activities, increase expertise for upcoming projects and better drive innovation through motorsport.
"Abt were our partner of choice to operate the team as we entered the all-electric racing series, with vast experience and technical expertise within Formula E.
"We'd like to thank them for all of their hard work and dedication during our first two seasons in the sport and look forward to continuing to collaborate with them for the remainder of Season 12."
That split means Abt is without a confirmed representation for the first time since the 2022 season, which it sat out following Audi's withdrawal from Formula E. That season apart, Abt has been an ever-present in the all-electric championship.
It returned in 2023 with a team that ran Mahindra cars and was supported by the Cupra brand, although this proved to be a largely uncompetitive spell due to Mahindra's Gen3 project running late and its shortcomings in providing a competitive package for what was, and to date remains, its only customer team.
The Race understands that current Abt race team employees will have the opportunity to join Lola should they wish to stay with the Formula E programme.
"Abt is proud of the foundational role we played in Lola's entry into Formula E," said Abt Sportsline CEO Thomas Biermaier.
"While Lola has made the strategic decision to consolidate its Formula E operations in-house at Silverstone to support future growth, this transition is a testament to the world-class operational standard we established together.
"We wish the Lola team continued success in their next chapter."
Lola committed to the Gen4 period of Formula E in June 2024 before it and technical partner Yamaha had even hit the track with its T001 Gen3 car, the first race car to bare a Lola name since the B12/10 LMP1 car run by Rebellion in the inaugural World Endurance Championship season in 2012.
Owner Till Bechtolsheimer has ambitions to launch further Lola projects off the back of the Formula E programme and has invested significantly in the company's Silverstone base and is also shaping its technical and operational team there.
This has included hiring former Mercedes F1 and Liberty Global executive Mishern Chetty as its managing director and ex-McLaren, Super Aguri and Mercedes Formula 1 designer Peter McCool.
Lola is also targeting an entry back into the endurance racing field and is known to have been talking to prospective manufacturers about a combined entry into sportscars.
The Race says
Lola has had a challenging time trying to get a foothold in Formula E from a competitive standpoint since it first raced with partners Yamaha and Abt in 2024. But this was always going to be the case entering halfway through the Gen3 ruleset.
It is clear that Lola's 2022 re-emergence as an international racing entity has been a true feel-good story within the motorsport industry in recent years. But sentiment only gets you so far in this business. Now it has to evolve and show that the belief, backing and vision of its new owner Bechtolsheimer can be replicated on the track at one of the highest levels in racing.
That is what Lola wants from its Gen4 project but it will be far from simple. Abt was a crucial ally in its move into Formula E but both its geographical distance from Lola's UK base and its cultural roots in working with a fellow German brand in Audi probably meant that the longevity of the Lola-Yamaha Abt alliance always had a short shelf life.
Abt's reputation and results in DTM, Formula E and several other disciplines of motorsport have been mainly strong, and its organisational and technical expertise are well-established.
It has brought a great deal to Formula E, but in a sense this iteration of the team has also felt like a neutered version of itself in comparison to its winning foundations in Formula E with Audi between 2014 and 2021, when it took 14 wins with Lucas di Grassi and Daniel Abt.
Lola will centralise its operations formally at the end of the season but in reality that process has already begun. Bechtolsheimer, Chetty and Preston will aim to strengthen Lola's core engineering areas for its Gen4 programme and indeed its entire business going forwards, and no one can begrudge them that.
"When Lola and Yamaha partnered up to get into Formula E, we underwrote a multi-year programme with an emphasis on really being highly competitive and ultimately then having championship-winning ambitions in Gen4," Bechtolsheimer told The Race last autumn.
"The last two seasons of the Gen3 era were always intended to be about building a programme, gathering data and developing the tools that you need to be competitive in this championship, and to learn the things we don't know about the championship."
Lola's Gen4 programme has had a challenging start, with issues at the first two tests, but a positive final day at Almeira earlier this month signed off the early reliability testing in a constructive manner.
It is unlikely to have a customer taker for Gen4, meaning that it can concentrate on crystallising Bechtolsheimer's objectives to challenge the more established manufacturers and becoming a winning operation.
Can Lola realistically achieve that? It's a tough ask against Nissan, Jaguar, Stellantis, Porsche and Mahindra - each of which, bar Mahindra, have titles under their respective belts.
But to underestimate Lola would be foolhardy. Most of the paddock did that with Techeetah in 2016 when one minute that team was rebuilding gearboxes in a Castle Donington hotel room and then the next it was winning title after title.
A few of that old team are now part of Lola and the investment being made by Bechtolsheimer is pointing the famous yellow and blue colours in an upward trajectory. The odds are against Lola, but secretly that might just be how it likes it.
