Yahoo Autos Antonio Felix da Costa Hopes Momentum Carries Him To Second Formula E Title
Antonio Felix da Costa hopes momentum carries him to second Formula E championship this weekend at London.
‘Comeback Kid’ still has Nick Cassidy, Mitch Evans, Pascal Wehrlein to leapfrog, with three others chasing him.
Only 38 points separate points leader Cassidy and seventh-place Jake Dennis, last year’s champion from the Andretti team.
ABB FIA Formula E TAG Heuer Porsche driver Antonio Felix da Costa had no idea he’d be where he is today as the fully electric series wraps up its 10th year this Saturday and Sunday at London.
The Season 6 champion hardly seemed like repeat-titlist material at the start of the season. He began with an on-track collision that drew a three-place grid-penalty for the next race. He blanked in points at the next stop’s doubleheader. At the following two venues, he showed slight improvement, but the buzz soon surfaced that Porsche was looking to replace him.
Determined to rebound, he vaulted from a 13th-place start at Misano, Italy, to win and by radio begged his team, “Please stay with me.” They did, but his victory didn’t.
Hours after the race, FIA officials ruled that the throttle damper spring on his Porsche didn’t comply with regulations, and da Costa was disqualified, giving the victory to Nissan’s Oliver Rowland. Da Costa wasn’t a factor in the second Misano race the next day, nor was he at Monaco and the first of two events at Berlin, where four years ago he hoisted his championship trophy.
Finally, he won at the second Berlin race to start a string of four victories in the past five events. That marked the first time that a Formula E driver scored three consecutive triumphs since da Costa did it on his way to his Season 6 championship.
At Berlin, da Costa declared, “I love to come back swinging after tough times.” Since his doubleheader sweep June 29-30 at Portland, he said, “I have had, in my 20-plus years of racing, a couple of momentums like this, where it looks like I can do no wrong. I’ve also been on the other side of the coin, where you’re doing everything right and the results are just not coming out. I’ll never take it for granted. I’ll always enjoy these moments and keep working hard and don’t get sloppy. You never know when your last one can be.”
But two-time winner Nick Cassidy and Jaguar TCS teammate Mitch Evans, who’s tied with da Costa teammate Pascal Wehrlein for second place, stand in da Costa’s way as he tries to complete his amazing comeback.
Jaguar team principal James Barclay told reporter Simon Ostler, “We’ve been the most consistent team in Formula E. We fought for a driver and teams championship every year in the last four years. We’ve led the championship twice in the last day in those four years. It's easy to say it's our time, but the reality is we have to get it across the line. We're incredibly hungry for this first title. The team have worked incredibly hard to get to ourselves again to this point, and all we can go and do is give it our best.”
On the strength of five mid-season podium finishes, Cassidy has opened a 12-point gap on Evans and Wehrlein. Only 38 points separate points leader Cassidy and seventh-place Jake Dennis, last year’s champion from the Andretti team.
Other contenders are Rowland, who missed the lone U.S. appearance, at Portland, Ore., because of illness, and DS Penske’s Jean-Eric Vergne, who’s seeking his unprecedented third championship.
A third crown, Vergne said, “would mean a lot” but conceded that “I don't think at the moment we got the car which is good enough to win the championship. So my role is into pushing the team to get a better car for the next coming seasons and to always deliver the maximum I can on track, seize every opportunities that we can. But it would mean a lot.
“I definitely won't retire until I got [another] championship. Maybe now I say that I'm going to be racing until 60 years old,” Vergne joked. “What drives me is obviously to win. And that's the reason why I keep doing it. The moment you don't have this mentality of wanting to win above anything else, that is the moment maybe you should stop racing.”
Formula E Driver Standings
Championship contenders heading into the London E-Prix doubleheader weekend
Nick Cassidy, Jaguar TCS Racing, 167 points
Mitch Evans, Jaguar TCS Racing, 155
Pascal Wehrlein, Tag Hauer Porsche Racing, 155
Antonio Felix, Tag Hauer Porsche Racing, 134
Oliver Rowland, Nissan, 131
Jean-Eric Vergne, DS Penske, 129
Jake Dennis, Andretti Formula E, 122
