Antonio Felix da Costa has accepted the blame for a collision with Alexander Sims which cost BMW i Andretti Motorsport a 1-2 finish at the Marrakesh E-Prix.
Da Costa, who won the opening round of the 2018/19 Formula E season in Ad Diriyah last month, was in a strong position to win once again in Marrakesh, fighting forward from sixth on the grid to take the lead early on in the 45-minute + 1 lap affair.
With Sims following da Costa as the Portuguese racer's rear-gunner, both BMW drivers had pulled away from the rest of the field, using Attack Mode to their advantage, making a 1-2 finish look probable.
Lapping faster than da Costa on the 2.971km-long Circuit International Automobile Moulay El Hassan, Sims opted to launch an attack on his team-mate late into the race, aiming to take first position around the outside of Turn 7.
Defending on the inside of the tight left-hand corner, which was a popular spot where a number of drivers had made mistakes throughout the E-Prix weekend, da Costa locked up his front tyres, pushing Sims to the outside of the circuit following contact while he himself crashed into the barriers, retiring from the race.
While Sims rejoined in fourth place with one Attack Mode remaining, the British driver was unable to recover onto the podium following the collision, with Jerome d'Ambrosio taking an unexpected victory for Mahindra Racing while Envision Virgin Racing's Robin Frijns and Sam Bird took a double podium finish.
"First of all I apologise to the team because I’ve never been in this situation before and I’m sorry," said da Costa post-race, who, as a result of the accident, no longer leads the Drivers' Championship.
"Alex [Sims] was amazing and I made a mistake. We fought for it, I locked up and couldn’t make the corner as a consequence and he lost out as well. So I’m sorry.
"I think I should have given him the race earlier to be honest. We won round one, should have been more than happy with P2.
"It’s a long year and clearly the outcome [of Marrakesh] is not how we are going to win this championship. We’ll learn from it and it will make us stronger."
Sims, who took his first points finish in Formula E in Marrakesh as a rookie of the all-electric single seater series, described the incident as "unfortunate," insisting that learning is the best way to prevent a similar incident in the future:
"I could just see the cars behind were catching and at some point I felt I needed to try and make a move," he said.
"But the way we all went about that was wrong so we need to learn from it and move on. It was just massively unfortunate to end like that.
"It’s not what any of us in the team want. Ultimately we all made mistakes in managing that situation and we need to learn from it and come back stronger for the next one."
As a result of making contact with his team-mate in Marrakesh, da Costa has dropped to third place in the Drivers' Championship, 12 points adrift of d'Ambrosio while BMW still sits in second in the Teams' Standings, now tied on points with Mahindra.
Formula E will return on Janaury 26 for the Santiago E-Prix.
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