Da Costa takes victory in the Marrakesh Formula E ePrix

Formula E

Da Costa takes victory in the Marrakesh ePrix

Dominant win for da Costa

Sam Hall

Saturday 29 February 2020 16:25

Antonio Felix da Costa wins the Marrakesh ABB Formula E ePrix for Techeetah as the Portugese driver climbs to the summit of the championship standings.

A first win since joining the Techeetah team, da Costa was embroiled in a battle with his former BMW team for the majority of the race.

Da Costa and Maximilian Gunther quickly broke away from the pack in the opening exchanges as Nyck de Vries acted like a cork in the bottle, up one place himself but lacking the early pace of the front two.

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Mitch Evans, having failed to set a time in qualifying, was hoping to make a fast start, but was only able to make up two positions on the opening lap as Ma Qinhua and Neel Jani ran wide at turn one.

De Vries early time at the front came to an end after ten-minutes of racing when he received a drive-through penalty for exceeding the energy regeneration limits. This dropped the Mercedes driver to P23, last but one.

The big mover in the opening 15-minutes was double-champion Jean-Eric Vergne. Having missed Friday practice through illness, the Techeetah driver struggled to P11 in qualifying, but after 12-laps he was up to third.

With 23-minutes remaining, Gunther managed to pass da Costa for the lead along the pit straight. The move looked too simple and the plan quickly became evident as da Costa used the slipstream from the BMW to save energy without losing time.

With Vergne closing in on the lead pair, da Costa retook the lead and wasted no time in pulling away from Gunther.

It was soon a Techeetah one-two as Vergne neatly dispatched Gunther as the race ticked into the final ten-minutes.

Evans was also continuing his climb through the field and he was now comfortably inside the points, sitting in eighth place with the provisional extra point for the fastest lap.

In the closing lap, positions were consistently changing in the final laps. Vergne dropped back behind Gunther into third place, but there were immediate questions over whether both he and Sebastian Buemi crossed the line after running out of usable energy.

Alexander Sims, teammate to Gunther at BMW, had climbed to fifth before a mechanical problem forced him to retire on the final lap.

In his climb from the back of the pack, Evans was able to reach sixth position.

"I had to play a little bit of a brave card in there," said da Costa. "I kind of let Maxi get super close at one point and then I pushed him into using the extra energy he had on me. I knew he was a bit better so I forced him to use that.

"The second attack mode, I was controlling Andre [Lotterer], and when he was close enough I used it and it worked out perfectly.

"I think we had a good plan in our mind. An amazing preparation back home. All the guys in Paris, we do a lot of hard work and it pays off."

After his intense battle with Vergne in the closing laps, Gunther was pleased to pick up the second place trophy.

"It was intense definitely, fighting against both the Techeetah cars," said Gunther. "Towards the end it became quite exciting with JEV when he passed me in his last seconds of attack mode.

"But we knew we could manage it with the energy and to make the move with two corners to go for P2 is for sure a very nice feeling."

The win puts da Costa to the top of the standings with five different race winners coming from the first five races of the season.

1 Antonio Felix da Costa DS Techeetah
2 Maximilian Gunther BMW i Andretti Motorsport +11.427
3 Jean-Eric Vergne DS Techeetah +12.034
4 Sebastian Buemi Nissan e.dams +12.282
5 Edoardo Mortara ROKiT Venturi Racing +15.657
6 Mitch Evans Panasonic Jaguar Racing +16.335
7 Lucas di Grassi Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler Formula E Team +18.706
8 Andre Lotterer TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team +19.498
9 Oliver Rowland Nissan e.dams +20.126
10 Sam Bird Envision Virgin Racing +20.295
11 Nyck de Vries Mercedes-Benz EQ Formula E Team +20.557
12 Robin Frijns Envision Virgin Racing +22.373
13 Jerome d’Ambrosio Mahindra Racing +22.785
14 Daniel Abt Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler Formula E Team +25.080
15 Stoffel Vandoorne Mercedes-Benz EQ Formula E Team +25.969
16 James Calado Panasonic Jaguar Racing +26.528
17 Felipe Massa ROKiT Venturi Racing +27.486
18 Neel Jani TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team +44.476
19 Brendon Hartley GEOX Dragon +49.002
20 Nico Muller GEOX Dragon +53.075
21 Oliver Turvey NIO 333 FE Team +59.969
22 Pascal Wehrlein Mahindra Racing +1:13.414
23 Ma Qinghua NIO 333 FE Team +1 Lap
DNF Alexander Sims BMW i Andretti Motorsport