Antonio Felix da Costa has told Motorsport Week that his comments after his victory in the Berlin E-Prix were about how FIA Formula E is a vastly different style of series to other mainstream racing categories.
The Portuguese, who took victory in the second of the double-header at the Tempelhof circuit, told Motorsport Week that the peloton races – which have been prevalent over the last few race weekends – were for “real racers”, but speaking to us since, da Costa was keen to stress his meaning on this, as well as agreeing with Jake Dennis’ assessments that many of the FE drivers’ skill in avoiding accidents in these races should be recognised.
“It’s a very different type of skill, and maybe I was misunderstood when I said “real racers”,” he said.
“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the fastest driver will always win this type of race, and this can be seen as not real racing; what I meant was there’s a lot of side-by-side, overtaking, lunges, a lot of defending, so in the proper meaning of the word “racing”, there’s a lot of that going on.
“Not taking anything away from Formula One or WEC, but I’ve done a double stint in WEC where I am not fighting anyone for the whole of the stint; in F1, we see guys leading from the first to the last lap.
“In Formula E, you can almost compare it to the Moto3 races, where there’s lots of slipstreaming, a bit of contact and Jake is right.
“You pick your fights, and drivers are starting to put labels on each-other – who’s a bit more aggressive than others, ‘oh he hit me in the last race, I got to get him back in the next one’, so managing those relationships is important.
“I get treated well in these races because I treat people well also, so you have to manage the race when you’re in there, and outside, you need to know that if you’re a bit aggressive to someone, you’ll probably get it back at some point.
“For example, with Rowland in Tokyo, I complained that he pushed me towards the wall, I gave it back to him in Monaco and he said ‘I’ll let you have that one’ – you give some and get some, and that’s a cool thing about these races.”
The Berlin weekend brought-up many feelings from the race weekend in Misano, where many drivers gave a variety of opinions on peloton, with Jean-Eric Vergne going as far as threatening to quit FE if it continues. When asked if he feels the possibility of forming an FE Drivers’ Association – akin to the F1 equivalent – would be a sensible idea going forward, da Costa said: “Maybe [it will].
“In the races, the first thing I care about and my first priority is the fans. If they are like: ‘wow, what an amazing show, we were on the edge of our seats’, then perfect – those guys will make or break a series or sport.
“It’s not for myself to enjoy driving this car or race anymore – if we are giving them the show they want, then perfect.
“We’ve seen a long and short race every weekend, and maybe I tend to agree that the short races are a better balance with saving and peloton racing, so there are tweaks and things to improve on, and Formula E is aware of that, because doing two different types of races is experimenting to see what is the way forwards, and that’s nice to see because Formula E and the FIA has an open mind on this.
“For myself, it’s nice to have a mix.
“We do have a mix, like Mexico, Saudi, Monaco and London, and the peloton races we know it’s more energy and strategy-based.
“It would be to have a balance and a season with both; if there needs to be 70 percent of something and 30 percent of the other, or 50-50, but it’s not up to me – we should listen to the fans and make them happy.”
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