“I don’t believe they have the technical expertise enough to regulate a world championship like us with all these manufacturers and drivers. They are not good enough.”
As racing driver outbursts go, it doesn’t get much more damning than that. But, fresh with the raw emotion of having just been stripped of a well-earned second place in Formula E's first London E-Prix last month, Antonio Felix da Costa’s reaction against officials in the drivers’ media pen immediately after perhaps came as no surprise.
What was more of a surprise, in fact, was to learn that the low air pressure on his front right tyre was, he claimed, due to a slow puncture which he had nursed over the final five laps of the race. An impressive feat, but one which earned Porsche driver da Costa a three-minute penalty due to a technical infringement – that being that the pressure went below the minimum safety level set out by tyre supplier Hankook and Formula E.
Da Costa and Porsche were left angry and subsequently appealed, but fast forward to last week and the stewards dismissed the right of review on the grounds that there was “no significant and relevant” new material. The matter is still set to go before the FIA’s International Court of Appeal which will be heard at a later date, though, so the matter still rumbles on.
If successful in overturning the decision it would alter things, with Porsche moving ahead of customer team Andretti Autosport in the teams’ championship, while da Costa would jump from ninth to fifth in the drivers’ standings. But more than the championship positions gained, the bigger ‘win’ would be quashing any speculation that this was anything other than unfortunate circumstances rather than something untoward.
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Da Costa claimed that the puncture had been caused by running over debris and there was certainly enough of it about as two red flags truncated the end of the race, which raised further questions around the consistency of penalties.
Several cars were left with broken front wings due to incidents prior to both the first and second stoppage in London, with the decision taken by some teams not to replace the heavily damaged bodywork. Doing so would have meant the driver would be required to cycle to the back of the pack, and with so few laps remaining and little performance drop-off a number of cars went back out for the restarts minus the front wing.
Source: Autosport