Race was interrupted when fight for the podium places was launched
António Félix da Costa took fourth place in the second race of Diriyah’s e-Prix whose double round opened the Formula E World Championship this weekend.
After a Saturday out of points, the Portuguese driver of DS Techeetah improved his pace this Sunday and, having started from 10th place in the second race this weekend, Félix da Costa he came in third and was fighting for the front seats when the race was stopped.
Robin Frijns (Virgin) started from pole position and kept a great fight with Sam Bird (Jaguar) for the first place throughout the race. The two DS riders moved up from ninth and 10th on the grid to places immediately afterwards.
This Sunday had already been scheduled for the failure on the brakes of Edoardo Mortara’s Venturi that led the Swiss to an accident while training the match, after the morning training completed.
This meant that Mortara not only ended up not being able to race, but also led the race direction to relegate the other Venturi and the two Mercedes team cars to the end of the grid without making the qualification before knowing what to do. had happened and that could have affected not only the cars of the customer team but those of the manufacturer.
The race this Sunday was also marked by other incidents and Félix da Costa went through a mix of good performance with some bad luck. When he used the second «atack mode», he ended up spending extra energy in a situation and running on yellow flags.
Having reached third place, Félix da Costa again lost his position to Verge and, as already said, the internal fight between the DSs followed the duel for first place. When the last Safety Car hit the track, 6 minutes from the end, Bird had taken the lead over Frijns.
It was expected to increase the intensity of the race not only between the two in front but also with the two DS now (all) together, as well as the uncertainty about the classification increased and who would be on the podium was launched.
But the amount of debris on the track left by the accident started between Maximilian Gunther (Andretti) and Tom Blomqvist (Nio) meant that the Safety Car gave way to the red flag that ended the race less than 3 minutes from the end, with Bird and Félix da Costa in fourth.
In this accident, which ended up leading to more consequences, Alex Lynn (Mahindra) also left the track and ended up overturning and turning around. The images were not shown on the television broadcast and there was still no official information on the pilot’s condition – who was taken to the hospital – , but «Motorsport.com» says that it was just a precaution.
Here hay una muestra what happened with Lynn. Se dio vuelta! #DiriyahEPrix
@SaudiShift pic.twitter.com/TFP9MBoQ7k– Stefania Bruera ( @stefifm) February 27, 2021
Rating of the second race of Diriyah’s e-Prix:
1. Sam Bird (Jaguar)
2. Robin Frijns (Virgin)
3.Jean-Éric Vergne (DS)
4. António Félix da Costa (DS)
5. Nick Cassidy (Virgin)
(…)
Pilot World Ranking:
1. Nick de Vries (Mercedes), 29 points
two. Sam Bird (Jaguar), 25
3. Ribin Frijns (Virgin), 22
4. Edoardo Mortara (Venturi), 19
5. Jean-Éric Verge (DS), 15
6. Mitch Evans (Jaguar), 15
7. René Rast (Audi), 15
8. António Félix da Costa (DS), 12
(…)
World Team:
1. Jaguar Racing, 40 points
two. Mercedes, 33
3. Envision virgin Racing, 32
4. DS Techeetah, 27
5. Rockit Venturi Racing, 18
(…)
The Formula E World Championship goes to Italy with the Rome e-Prix scheduled for April 10.
