After a curious fight with Jean-Èric Vergne at the Marrakech eP, Antonio Félix da Costa questioned whether he could have fought for the victory had he not been stuck behind his own teammate
António Félix da Costa was, once again, in the best possible position to win his first race in the current Formula E season. Last weekend in Marrakech, the Portuguese driver of DS Techeetah secured the starting position and led at the beginning of the race, but everything changed when he was touched by Oliver Rowland's Mahindra. While still among the first, Da Costa took second place after an internal fight with teammate Jean-Èric Vergne.
"I had a positive day, obviously. With a pole-position and a second place, I got on the podium," said Da Costa. "My race was almost compromised, I got a touch from Rowland on the fourth or fifth lap and almost spun. Then a misunderstanding there about the team orders with my teammate made us lose some time," he lamented.
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The curious moment between Vergne and Da Costa happened already in the final stretch of the race, when Edoardo Mortara - who would go on to win - was leading, followed by the two DS Techeetah cars - the Portuguese in second and the Frenchman in third. The team ordered the drivers to reverse positions, but 'JEV' couldn't get close to the Swiss Venturi driver, and started to lose pace to Antonio.
With that, the Portuguese driver again passed his teammate - who would still lose the third place to Mitch Evans - and went after the leader, but could not reach his rival in time. After the race, Da Costa still wondered if it would be possible to fight for the victory if he hadn't lost time giving the position to his teammate.
"I don't know if we could have won the race, but certainly [we would have] come much closer and had a chance to try to win," he pointed out. "But that's the way it is, on the other hand we came here to keep a good sequence of races with the 24 Hours of Le Mans and now a pole-position and podium here, gives us a good motivation for the end of the season," he finished.
Formula E returns in two weeks, with the eP New York double round scheduled to take place on July 16 and 17.