Da Costa wins for the first time with Jaguar in Race 2 at Jeddah

Da Costa vince per la prima volta con Jaguar in Gara 2 a Jeddah

After the second race in Jeddah, Antonio Felix Da Costa and Jaguar TCS Racing deserve applause for devising and executing the perfect strategy.

Swiss Sébastien Buemi returns to the podium with Envision, while the reigning World Champion Oliver Rowland returns to the points with third place.

As “DAC” said in post-race interviews, it’s never easy to change teams, and this change was particularly difficult for the Portuguese driver for several reasons; but this victory relieves him of a great burden, and if we do the math, we can say it came in a relatively short time… in his fifth race with Jaguar.

The Portuguese driver also managed to build and maintain a certain advantage that would have kept him out of trouble in the final laps; he was the first of the leading group to activate the Attack Mode, even though he had to move among the “pack” during the race.

Thus, Da Costa returns to look down on everyone from the top of the podium at the 2024 Portland E-Prix.

Sébastien Buemi was able to utilize all his experience and that of the Envision team, led by one of the most experienced Formula E drivers, Sylvain Filippi.

Several drivers took turns leading the race, in a high-energy contest, including Buemi: the Swiss driver took advantage of an overlap in Attack Mode to beat Rowland, who had also led in the early stages of the race.

Oliver Rowland demonstrated the mettle of a true World Champion. In Race 1, he emerged with broken tires, even psychologically, after his right front wheel hit a defender on the side of the track and broke his suspension.

Twenty-four hours later, he managed to “sleep” on it, reset everything, and managed to reach the third step of the podium, earning important points for his title defense and the psychological boost to keep his morale high.

After two consecutive pole positions in the same weekend, Race 2 looked set to see Edoardo Mortara and his Mahindra return to the top step of the podium, but despite leading the race for several laps, he had to settle for fourth. He still scored another solid points haul, but the team felt something had gone wrong in their failure to win.

Dan Ticktum overtook teammate Pepe Martí for fifth: the Briton was tight with a lap to go, while Martí was trying to outperform. Mitch Evans (Jaguar TCS Racing) followed in seventh, while yesterday’s winner Pascal Wehrlein (Porsche Formula E Team) only managed eighth, ahead of Citroën’s Jean-Éric Vergne and DS Penske driver Taylor Barnard.

Wehrlein leads the drivers’ standings by six points over Mortara, 68 to 62, with Rowland on 49. The Porsche Formula E Team has 113 points to Jaguar TCS Racing’s 86 in the FIA World Teams’ Championship and FIA World Manufacturers’ Championship standings.

António Félix da Costa, No. 13, Jaguar TCS Racing, said:

This one feels good! Changing teams is a massive workload and there’s a lot of things to learn and new faces and names. I’m happy to get this done by race five – we’ve been having good pace but we haven’t been able to capitalise on it so I’m happy to give this one back to Jaguar TCS Racing. I knew when I had a little bit of a gap and Attack Mode over my rivals that only a big drama could really take this away from us. But you know in racing, it’s never over until it’s over – I had all these alarms flashing on my dash and I kept asking: ‘Do I need to manage something?’; ‘Do I need to go slower?’. They told me to acknowledge the alarms and crack on! It was a little bit stressful but it’s a great feeling when you know it’s only up to you to bring this one home, and I’m very happy to do it.

Sébastien Buemi, No. 15, Envision Racing said:

I decided to lead the race just to avoid the carnage a little bit, avoid a puncture or damaging the wing. If you fight for P3 or P4 it’s a jungle out there! If you want to just survive you want to make sure you’re at the front. You do save a bit less energy and I think DAC did a mega job saving more. He was able to go flat out a bit longer than me and that’s why he made that gap. At the end it’s P2 and DAC did a better job. We take those points – yesterday we qualified last, so obviously to be on the podium today is not bad.

Oliver Rowland, No. 23, Nissan Formula E Team said:

Yesterday I was pulling my hair out! The last two races I struggled quite a lot, I just had no pace. Last night we changed quite a lot of stuff, so I’m really pleased to be back on the podium. Thanks to my whole team as they stayed late last night and they did a great job. I just wanted to stay out of trouble – from third or fourth backwards it’s quite dangerous with people coming on the outside, and honestly I could go so slow at some points that I could control the pace and be quite comfortable in my target. Of course António got a slight advantage and I wouldn’t have beaten him today – I think with a slightly different strategy on my side with the Attack Mode I could have finished second, but anyway I’m still happy with third.

At the following links, you can read and/or download the Final Classification for Race 2 of the Jeddah E-Prix, the Drivers’ Championship, Teams’ Championship, and the Manufacturers’ Championship. (PDF)

#MarceloPadin #theEMNteam

Source: Formula E

Photo Credits: BMF – Mitsuaki Futori