Lucas Di Grassi ‘gave me no room at all’ in Paris clash – Antonio Felix da Costa

MS Amlin Andretti Formula E driver António Félix da Costa says Lucas di Grassi gave him “no room at all” in their collision during the Paris ePrix.

The Portuguese driver had passed championship contender di Grassi, who was recovering from a poor qualifying, earlier in the race.

But di Grassi attempted to take the place back with a move around the outside of da Costa into the tight Turn 8 corner.

As the drivers hit the brakes, di Grassi moved across on da Costa, who was still alongside him, to take the apex and they collided.

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Da Costa was force to retire on the spot after hitting the barrier, but di Grassi continued and changed cars, before later crashing out in a separate incident.

“I wanted to go forwards because we had a bad qualifying and I knew we were out of position and we always have a better race car than a qualifying car to be honest,” da Costa explained.

“I was doing that, I was going forward, getting past a few cars then got in front of Lucas as well at Turn 7.

“Everything was going smooth, I was all over [Tom] Dillmann, I knew he had a little bit less experience, so I was just waiting for the moment to try and get the move done on him.

“Then from one moment to the other, behind me, Lucas his mind kind of switched off, because he was being so calm and then he just started to attack me in all kinds of corners that you cannot overtake.

“Then he tried this move around the outside in Turn 8 that for me… we didn’t even get to the corner, he came a little bit past me around the outside but he just started to turn in and gave me no room at all.

“I literally ran out of room and hit the inside wall and ended up hitting him as well. It’s fine to try and overtake someone around the outside but let’s at least get to the apex of the corner, which wasn’t the case.

“The most surprising thing for me in that moment was that I knew it was Lucas and he is normally such a clever and intelligent guy that I was just not expecting that from him. When I realised what was going on, there was no way I could have backed out of that.”