The slow-burner threatening to unseat Audi's DTM king

You could be forgiven for overlooking Nico Muller during his maiden campaign in Formula E with the unfancied GEOX Dragon team. The 28-year-old was one of the two full-season drivers who failed to score a single point in the 2019-20 season, the other being NIO 333's Oliver Turvey, ending up firmly near the bottom of the drivers' standings in 25th position.

However, the championship picture couldn't possibly be any more different in Muller's primary series, the DTM, where he sits pretty at the top of the table with two rounds to go, 10 points clear of two-time champion Rene Rast. Muller's team-mate Robin Frijns, who twice stood on the podium in the recently-concluded Formula E season for Envision Virgin Racing, is the only other driver in championship contention, 16 points off the top spot.

It has been a long and arduous journey for the Swiss driver from a DTM also-ran to be a genuine title contender. After finishing 19th in his 2014 rookie season, it took him three years to score his first podium (at Hockenheim) and victory (at the Norisring) in the category and even then, he was forced to play second fiddle at Team Abt to two-time champion team-mate Mattias Ekstrom.

After Ekstrom's retirement at the end of the 2017 season, Muller enjoyed improved fortunes the following year, but it wasn't until 2019 that he emerged as one of the DTM's standout talents.

In the first year of the Class One rules, Muller emerged as Rast's closest competitor in the title fight as Audi dominated its rivals BMW and R-Motorsport Aston Martin. Muller scored three victories and a total of 11 podium finishes over the course of the campaign, exceeding his total from the five previous seasons combined, but ultimately fell short of upsetting Rast and claiming a maiden crown.

Rast, in fact, sealed the title with a round to spare, but deep down must have known that Muller would return as an even more formidable opponent in 2020 - and that's exactly how it has panned out.

In the very first race of the coronavirus-delayed season, Muller made it clear that he's at the peak of his career by claiming a dominant 19s victory as Rast struggled en route to fifth. He followed that triumph with two more victories in the next two races to put himself comfortably clear of his title rivals in the standings.

Both Rast and Frijns have since enjoyed trips to the top step of the podium in another all-Audi title fight, but Muller arguably has been the most consistent of the trio. Not counting the second race at Zolder last weekend, where he was caught out by an ill-timed safety car, Muller has finished inside the top five on every occasion so far this year.

Excluding technical issues such as the one he encountered at the second race at the Nurburgring (where he was losing as much as 70bhp), the next race at the same venue where he was pitched into a spin by Audi stablemate Jamie Green, or the mixed weather Lausitztring race two where strategy placed a decisive role and Muller has never finished outside the podium.

"We managed to somehow conserve this good race pace and usually qualify a bit further up to make our life easier for the races. That's the main difference. It's much easier when you can do it from the front" Nico Muller

It was such consistency that placed him 29 points clear of second-placed Frijns after the fifth round of the season on the Nurburgring's grand prix layout last month, a buffer of a full race win and then some more. The gap has since come down drastically in the last two rounds, but Muller still remains at the head of the championship. It's a welcome change from 2019, when he was left with a mountain to climb in the second half of the season. So what has changed?

"Well compared to last year I don't think there's a huge difference," he says. "Last year already we were very strong in the races, but often found ourselves in situations where I had to start the race somewhere between row three and four. And it's not easy to fight for wins from there.

"But we managed to somehow conserve this good race pace and usually qualify a bit further up in the [current] year to make our life easier for the races. That's the main difference. It's much easier when you can do it from the front. You don't have to make places like last year."

It's true that Muller's qualifying form was a major weakness in 2019, with his average starting position being sixth across nine rounds and 18 races. Worse still, there were three races where he qualified outside the top 10, allowing Rast, who took the most poles of anyone in 2019, an easy run to the title.

This year Muller has started on the front row in half of the races held so far, for an average starting position of 2.9. This means he has mostly managed to avoid the chaos that typically ensues in the midfield in any tin-top championship.

But his improvement in qualifying is just one of the reasons that has put Muller at the centre of the title fight. In particular, the Abt squad has outperformed all its rivals within the Audi stable this year, sealing the teams' title with two rounds to spare at Zolder. This hasn't gone down well with Team Rosberg driver Rast, who admitted last month that the Abt's dominance was "very frustrating" for him.

Another point in Muller's favour has been the fact that he has led the championship since the very first race at Spa. This is in strong contrast to 2019, when he was always playing catchup to Rast in the title fight.

"Momentum is important because you arrive at a race track a lot more confident when you had a race like Nico had," says Rast of Muller's 2019 form. "You arrive and you know you are strong in qualifying and the race. This gives you the confidence you need to go out and push.

"You do only small set-up changes because the car is quick, there is not much to change most likely while we have to change a bit more, always try to catch up which is difficult. Like we saw last year, they tried to catch us so doing a lot of changes, we kept our car more or less like it was and we had the momentum.

"This year it's exactly the other way round. I think that's what makes racing interesting. There are two sides of racing, one you win and the other time you have to catch up."

Rast also believes minor changes to the regulations and Audi's RS5 DTM challenger in 2020 have played to Muller's strength, creating a rather big divide between him and the rest of the field.

"I saw last year in GT3 [races] when the car is a bit nervous at the rear axle, he can manage it quite well," Rast observes. "That's the thing I would say his strength is to control the rear of the car when it's [on] the limit.

"From outside the [Audi DTM] car hasn't changed a lot, but there are some other topics that have changed from last year to this year. Not big changes, but obviously they play a part and we try to understand them.

"The tyre has changed slightly. We don't have brake cooling anymore. Last year we had brake cooling, which was basically used to control tyre pressure as well as brake pressure, brake temperature and stuff like that. So, this is gone. This gives you basically a different car behaviour.

"I would tend to say Robin is maybe the one who has the most natural pace, Rene is the one who is the most detailed worker and Nico is the one that has most of both" Dieter Gass

"And also push-to-pass and DRS, the car needs a different kind of set-up because in qualifying you are a lot of the time on DRS. In the race you run most of the time with DRS open, which gives you a different car ride height. We need a bit of a different philosophy in terms of set-up."

It says a lot about Muller that Audi Sport boss Dieter Gass feels he is the perfect mix of his title rivals Rast and Frijns, suggesting he sees him as a rounded driver.

"We've seen it this year [that] they are all working on a very high level, the three of them, and the differences are very subtle," says Gass. "If I want to try to point something out and put a ranking, I would tend to say Robin is maybe the one who has the most natural pace, Rene is the one who is the most detailed worker and Nico is the one that has most of both."

Muller's title challenge took a big hit at Zolder when he finished down in ninth place while Rast romped to a second successive win, eating into his previously-healthy points lead. But all worthy champions have shown the capability to bounce back from major setbacks - and Muller has the perfect opportunity to do so at this weekend's second Zolder double-header to prove that he's the man most deserving of the 2020 DTM title.