Da Costa Strikes First In Formula E
New Hyundai signing Sebastien Loeb will face a race against time as he prepares for his maiden World Rally Championship outing with the squad on the Monte Carlo Rally.
The nine-time world champion, who drives for a manufacturerbacked team other than Citroen for the first time in his 21-year career, will arrive at Hyundai’s Monte Carlo Rally preparations next month with just hours to spare following his latest attempt to win Dakar in Peru.
Peugeot’s decision to walk away from both Dakar and the World Rallycross Championship earlier this year left Loeb without a PSA contract for the first time in two decades and forced him to look elsewhere for full-time work.
He was confirmed as a Hyundai driver for the next two years last week. His 2019 programme offers six rallies, including the first two events of the new season in Monte Carlo and Sweden. The remainder of next year and his 2020 itinerary have yet to be decided.
Despite the absence of a factory effort, Loeb sought a fourth shot at winning the South American marathon and signed up for the 3,000-mile event in a Peugeot 3008 DKR with French privateer squad PH Sport.
Loeb is scheduled to finish Dakar on Magdalena beach, Lima on January 17. He will then make the 12-hour flight back to Europe the next day and drive Hyundai’s i20 Coupe WRC for the first time in a test in the French Alps on January 19.
After testing for Saturday and Sunday, Loeb will work through his test data on Monday before starting the recce for Monte Carlo at 0800hrs on Tuesday January 22. He and co-driver Daniel Elena will complete their preparations for their first Monte outing in four years at 2000hrs on Wednesday.
Rally fans will get their first glimpse of Loeb driving a Hyundai at 1000hrs the following morning when he starts the first pre-event shakedown stage of the season.
The Sanremo Rally in October, 2000 was the last time Loeb started a WRC round in anything other than a Citroen (he guided a Toyota Corolla WRC to 10th on the Italian event) – but that all changes shortly after seven in the evening on Thursday January 24, when he starts Monte Carlo from Place Desmichels in Gap. His first competitive stage, the 12-mile test from La Breole to Selonnet starts half an hour later.
Despite the punishing schedule, Loeb admits he’s delighted to be back in the WRC.
He said: “Winning at the Rally of Spain this season reignited my desire to continue competing at the very front of WRC. Joining Hyundai will give us a fresh challenge and one that I can’t wait to tackle.
“I have been impressed with the team’s approach and their determination to succeed. They were firmly in the title fight this season and I feel that I can bring a lot to them, together with Thierry [Neuville], Andreas [Mikkelsen]
Formula E may have a new look, rules and many unfamiliar drivers for the 2018/19 championship, but its racing was as tight and unpredictable as ever.
Not unexpectedly, BMW Andretti claimed pole position. The squad had topped all three days of pre-season testing and again showed good topend speed to claim the top spot on the grid, through damp and greasy conditions on the still-drying track, with Antonio Felix da Costa.
He transformed pole into a debut FE win for BMW – it is now a full works FE manufacturer, although Andretti still owns the entry – but it wasn’t straightforward. First, da Costa had to reverse in to his grid spot as he was “looking at the wrong line on the floor so I misplaced my car a little bit”, and that left him pointing towards the wall on the left of the track.
That proved to be no bother, though, as he shot off the line and into the lead, while behind him, Sebastien Buemi battled by Jose Maria Lopez to take second around the outside of the first corner.
Da Costa consolidated his lead during the early laps, as Jean-eric Vergne and his DS Techeetah teammate Andre Lotterer passed Lopez and closed in on Buemi. Vergne seized second with a spectacular pass on the outside of the right-hand Turn 18 – the track’s main overtaking spot, where Lotterer also demoted the Nissan e. dams driver a few tours later, but down the inside, on lap 12 of 33.
The Techeetah drivers then closed in on da Costa. First, despite the BMW driver’s fierce defence, Vergne repeated his trick around the outside of Turn 18 to take the lead. An immediate season five win for the season four champion looked on.
A Techeetah 1-2 also appeared likely eight laps later when Lotterer shot by da Costa on the straight opposite the pit garages to take second going into Turn 1.
But then the race turned on its head. Both Techeetah drivers were handed drivethrough penalties for going over the maximum permitted power while using regen. This is a breach of article 27.9 of FE’S sporting regs and relates to a software issue resulting in power regeneration exceeding the level defined within the FIA suppliers’ software implementation guide. The penalties handed da Costa the lead back ahead of Lopez and Jerome d’ambrosio, who had risen up from sixth on the grid, with Vergne and Lotterer rejoining fifth and seventh.
But the duo roared back towards the front of the race. In the closing stages, they lowered the fastest lap benchmark three times (twice for Vergne and once, finally, with Lotterer) – Techeetah set it 15 times out of 27 overall, with BMW the next best on six – to close in on the top three. Their charge was aided by Lopez stopping with a broken left rear suspension, just after Vergne had moved into third.
It had been a spirited drive from Lopez, but he was undone by the entry to the attack mode zone. “I tried to go a little wider and got onto the dust, I never expected it to be that bad,” he explained. “I did a mistake there and misjudged the situation. I went wide and I touched the wall with the rear - not hard, but enough to have some damage.”
Lopez limped on for a few more laps but eventually stopped at Turn 14 on lap 26, which triggered a virtual safety car that then became a full safety car interruption. This closed the pack up, with da Costa immediately activating his first attack mode usage as he ran ahead of D’ambrosio and Vergne. When the race restarted for a four-lap dash to the flag, both da Costa and Vergne used their second attack mode activations just before the safety car came in. The disruption meant all the drivers could push flat out to the end, although many reckoned the event was not particularly energy limited in any case.
Da Costa scampered clear while Vergne was busy demoting D’ambrosio to third. At the start of the final lap, the Portuguese driver’s lead was 1.507s, but that was just 0.462s at the finish.
“I was not actually stressed until the second last corner where I wasn’t expecting him to be that close,” a delighted da Costa said afterwards. “I took it easy on the last lap just to bring it home and then I looked in the mirror and he was right there. I was like ‘jeez I should have kept pushing on that lap’ but he was still not close enough.”
BMW motorsport boss Jens Marquardt called the victory a “historic” moment for the manufacturer. “To bring [BMW’S hard work] onto the race track here in Riyadh for the first time and have the first victory from pole straightaway,” he continued, “you definitely can’t have it any better.”
D’ambrosio completed the podium ahead of a late-charging Mitch Evans (Jaguar), Lotterer, Buemi, and Nissan’s Oliver Rowland, who was the top placed rookie. Nelson Piquet rounded out the top 10 behind a disappointed Audi pair, Daniel Abt and Lucas di Grassi.