How F1's forgotten prodigy has been spurned again

"I was disappointed." A pause. "Kind of angry, I would say. I don't think I did badly. It's unlucky. But it's not fun, not at all. It's a bit unfair."

This is a painful conversation, but probably a familiar one for Robin Frijns. There's no enjoyment in talking to a driver about times they have been spurned, rejected, screwed over - however you want to put it.

Sadly, though, this is a necessary chat. In the words of Frijns's ex-Formula E team-mate Antonio Felix da Costa, "one of the quickest, pure natural talents out there" has been snubbed. Again.

"Hopefully the luck turns at one point and I'll be back in the Formula E car," says Frijns over the phone, a day before flying to Laguna Seca for the famed American track's inaugural eight-hour Intercontinental GT Challenge event.

Frijns will be representing Audi, the manufacturer with which he secured the Blancpain GT Sprint Series title last month. It was his fifth championship success in eight years, his fifth from six full-time campaigns - and in the outlying year, 2016, he was a race winner in Blancpain and claimed victory in the Sepang 12 Hours.

Frijns should have been preparing for his trip to California off the back of four days at Valencia for FE pre-season testing. And he should be gearing up for the 2017/18 FE season opener in Hong Kong in November.

He wasn't in Spain. And it looks damn unlikely he'll be in Hong Kong.

After two seasons with the Andretti squad, Frijns has been ousted. Much like his reserve driver roles at the Sauber and Caterham Formula 1 teams, both of which ended in nothing thanks to financial difficulties engulfing both outfits, he's a victim of misfortune.

"It's part of a game that's played in FE, everybody gets a seat for a reason. I'm not saying they are bad drivers. But it's unlucky" Robin Frijns

While Frijns is contracted to the WRT team in GTs, his customer racing affiliation with Audi meant BMW - Andretti's increasingly-influential technical partner in FE - did not want the Dutchman driving cars with its badges on in the electric single-seater series.

"We all really enjoyed working with Robin, he was a lot of fun and in terms of raw talent he's extremely quick - one of the quickest guys out there," explains Andretti co-team principal Roger Griffiths.

"There were some other complexities in the relationship that Robin has with Audi, and BMW is a big competitor. That really played a lot into the direction of where the programme is going for the future.

"It was a very tough thing to do. We certainly were supportive of keeping Robin within the team, but it had to be a relationship that worked for everybody."

In his place, Andretti fielded BMW's GT star Alexander Sims and DTM race winner Tom Blomqvist. Also present at the test were Porsche drivers Neel Jani and Andre Lotterer, and Mercedes DTM ace Edoardo Mortara, who have been courted for drives at independent teams Techeetah, Dragon and Venturi ahead of their respective employers' FE entry in 2019/20.

Frijns says he didn't give up hope of landing an FE drive after the Andretti situation fell apart. He was "in talks with several teams at one point" but when Jani signed a deal with Dragon, Lotterer was announced at Techeetah (having not even driven an FE car) and Mortara engaged in a shootout for a Venturi drive, Frijns was the forgotten man.

"I don't need to explain how it works," he says. "It's a bit unlucky for me, but it's how it is at the moment. I don't think I could have done anything different. There was a lot of teams and drivers who were connected with a sponsor, or Mercedes or Porsche. It probably comes out in two or three years that they were there for a reason. That's just not the case with me.

"It's part of a game that's played in FE, everybody gets a seat for a reason. I'm not saying they are bad drivers, the FE grid in terms of drivers is really high, they deserve to be in the car. But it's unlucky."

Frijns is a major loss to FE. His meteoric rise up the F1 ladder had him destined for the promised land; back-to-back-to-back titles in Formula BMW Europe, Formula Renault Eurocup and Formula Renault 3.5 from 2010 to '12.

That final crown, the feather in his junior single-seater cap, came against Jules Bianchi, Sam Bird, da Costa and now-Haas F1 driver Kevin Magnussen. In securing a dominant two-litre Renault success the year before, Frijns defeated Carlos Sainz Jr, Daniil Kvyat and Stoffel Vandoorne.

"If you look at the F1 grid at the moment, I still see the guys I raced against," he says. "Sainz is now heading to Renault for a factory drive. Frustrated is maybe too harsh a word... but I could have been in that position as well."

Motorsport is littered with hard-luck tales of wasted talent, but Frijns's story is right up there in the 'wrong place, wrong time' stakes. The driver with one of the most impressive junior CVs of all time has just six proper days of F1 testing to show for his time on grand prix racing's periphery: two with Sauber and Red Bull in Abu Dhabi in late 2012, two in '13 as Sauber's official reserve, and three (less one that was just a number of installation laps) for Caterham at the start of '14.

"The Red Bull test was only because I won World Series," he says. "The proper test I had was with Sauber, two days before at the same track, Abu Dhabi.

"Then I was with the team for a whole year, but Sauber - and then Caterham - went into financial issues.

"When I came into Sauber it was Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Gutierrez. Gutierrez was the guy who paid the money, Hulkenberg was there to get the results. Then Sergey Sirotkin came in, and I felt my position going away.

"I remember doing a mid-season test, the rookie test at Silverstone, and Nico was there driving the day after. The test went really well, I was really quick [Frijns lapped 0.012 seconds slower than Hulkenberg], and the team was happy with me.

"A few weeks after the test Monisha [Kaltenborn, then team principal] called me up to say, 'We don't have a place for you for next year'. If the team runs into problems, it's out of your hands.

"The same thing happened at Caterham; it was bought by Colin Kolles and they brought Lotterer in [for Spa]. They needed money and I never had millions behind me. I was looking for sponsors the entire time but could never find one to let me prove myself for a race or two."

FE looked to have finally afforded him with the opportunity F1 never provided. He was mesmerising at times in his debut FE season, battling gamely as Andretti stuck to the season-one specification Spark SRT_01E for a second campaign after its attempt at a powertrain (motor, gearbox and inverter) hit the skids in pre-season testing.

As his rivals progressed with a more advanced package, Frijns fought valiantly. He was only 12th in the points, but secured #1 in Autosport's list of top 10 drivers for the season.

"When you look at the pure statistics on the points he scored for us and relative qualifying positions he did extremely well," says Griffiths. "Robin has incredible natural talent. In terms of being able to drive a car, extract the maximum from it, he's one of the best guys out there.

"I remember being at Donington with him, it was the first time I had the opportunity to work with him. He was always locking the inside front, lap after lap after lap. He just said that's what he did, that's how he made the car rotate. I was like... wow.

"How on earth do you do that? How do you brake to the point of just getting enough wheel locking to make the car rotate, versus braking too much and missing the apex of the corner? It was little things like that, he was just able to do it."

His reward for a stellar season as a battling underdog was to spend another season as a battling underdog. Andretti failed to make progress with its first successful attempt at a powertrain, and even increasing BMW technical support couldn't stop the rot.

A double points finish in Hong Kong proved a false dawn, and as da Costa failed to trouble the top 10 over the rest of the season it took a Herculean effort from Frijns to steal the team seventh in the championship at the final round.

"That also kind of makes the feeling worse," says Frijns. "If I had a few shunts I could have told myself another driver deserves the seat, or it's my own mistake that lost me the seat. That's just not how I feel.

"I think everyone was happy with me, Antonio and me were friends in a way, not on track of course, but we always were there to help the team forwards. That's my best reason for the team to keep me for next season with Antonio because everything was going as planned. That makes it harder when you have to leave.

"When I was driving the junior series, heading to Formula 1, I never got the opportunity. Now I've had the opportunity in Formula E and I've done quite well with the car I had, I drove the season-one car in season two, and my second season we didn't have a car to finish in high positions. But if you compare to Antonio who is a really good driver, I don't think I did badly.

"It didn't go my way in F1. Now Formula E doesn't go my way as well. I know the feeling too well..."

Thrown into the cold not once, but twice, despite a mountain of evidence in support of Frijns's ability, makes it reasonable to question whether the 26-year-old is doing something behind the scenes to shoot himself in the foot. Can life, even in motorsport, really be this cruel? Can someone really have this much bad timing?

"If you look at it from the outside people probably have different opinions and see it in the wrong way," Frijns says. "From years back, there was a rumour I'm the type of guy who is hard to work with in a team. I'm not the one who is saying it's not true - I'll keep it for other people to say that!"

Other people like da Costa. "I feel Robin is a massive asset to any team," he attests. "I am so, so sad to lose him - he was so fair as a team-mate. I thought I was pretty good sitting in the car and going quick... but I have to say he's probably better at that."

"Robin has incredible natural talent. He's one of the best guys out there" Andretti's Roger Griffiths

Da Costa acknowledges, though, that for Frijns, "his personality is probably what puts him on the back foot - not with myself, but he's quite a laidback person. He's like, 'Everything will sort itself out'."

This is not the only testimony to that effect. There are stories of people encountering Frijns and perceiving him to be switched off. He is not an extrovert but he is not sullen, instead a quiet joker with a confidence that could easily be mistaken for arrogance and a relaxed persona that some could perceive to be lethargy.

Griffiths reckons that for all Frijns's "natural talent", he "struggled a bit more perhaps with the discipline sometimes of the race team". But when Andretti "found what buttons we had to press", Frijns turned it on.

"As you become more professional inside an organisation you push the drivers harder and harder for every last little bit, and that's perhaps not something Robin was asked to do before," says Griffiths. "Initially that was challenging for him but he stepped up his game throughout the season and got more and more focused."

This only makes things more frustrating. The verdict on Frijns's ability is unanimous. His integration into the team, and his relationship with the driver on the other side of the garage, scores a big tick, too. And his supposed weak point, this penchant for giving off an air of disinterest, is also dispelled by his conduct within the team over the season.

That's what grates; surely with Frijns, but to those outside his personal circle too. He remains a commercial misfit, for whom external factors are handicapping what could be a spectacular career.

FE's loss could be another category's gain, but Frijns - who remains without a wealthy backer - is acutely aware that any opportunity will be earned the hard way.

IndyCar, where he tested a couple of years ago as a reward for his stellar first Andretti season?

"It's like Formula 1 in a way, you still need to find the sponsorship. If you don't have that it's very difficult to get a drive."

How about DTM, having driven an Audi, BMW and Mercedes in recent years?

"First of all I want to know what's going to happen with the series. If Mercedes stops then maybe the entire DTM stops?"

That would be a twisted, appropriate next step for Frijns, moving to the world's premier touring car category, another series littered with top talent and well-paying drives, only to be present for its shocking and sudden collapse.

But that's a cruel hypothetical scenario to envisage, and Frijns isn't looking seriously in that direction anyway. He has unfinished business in FE, and - aside from continuing in GT racing with Audi - that's where he sees his future.

"If we're all honest FE is the series to be in at the moment - it's growing the most and has the best drivers," he says. "I want to be there and compete against them.

"The plan is to keep a foot in the door and try to be within a team for 2018/19. It's not that easy, drivers have signed for multiple years so it's difficult to jump in, but I don't want to be a reserve driver - I've been there in Formula 1 and it didn't make me really happy.

"I've been with Audi for the past two years. The target is to be in Formula E with Audi. I like the brand, I feel comfortable. Why would I change? Halfway through the season last year, if BMW came along and said, 'We want you for Formula E for the next three years as a BMW driver', then it was probably different, and I was probably in the car still.

"But that never happened, and it made my life different."

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Frijns may be seeking pastures new in FE, but the routine of finding a new place to hang his crash helmet is all too familiar now and it's a poor fit for a one-time F1 prodigy.

If Frijns can take back control of his story, he is more than capable of penning a happy ending to a hard-luck tale. For the moment, though, all he can do is make it through the latest challenging chapter.