“Once you win and everyone is glad, it’s simple, however whenever you lose that’s when you really want to grow to be one [in the team] and it reveals everyone’s character. I believe everyone is pushing laborious to assist me flip this round.”
For a driver so used to success, having dominated the 2019-20 Components E season en path to the title, the distinct lack of outcomes thus far this yr for Antonio Felix da Costa have been tough to just accept, even for the often ever-positive Portuguese driver.
The 2024 season marks da Costa’s second time period with the Porsche staff and arguably, on paper, might have supplied the 32-year-old a platform from which to problem for the title.
As an alternative, the opening three races have yielded no factors with essentially the most notable second being a Mexico retirement after a careless collision with Nico Muller that additionally earned da Costa a grid penalty for the next Diriyah double-header, the place sixteenth and 14th have been one of the best he might muster.
To compound his woes, team-mate Pascal Wehrlein convincingly gained the season-opener in Mexico Metropolis earlier than reigning champion Jake Dennis took his Porsche-powered Andretti machine to a dominant victory within the Diriyah prequel.
“We will see that the bundle, even when the Porsche manufacturing facility staff isn’t performing, Andretti is or vice-versa,” da Costa tells Motorsport.com forward of the Sao Paulo E-Prix this weekend.
“So there are very other ways to make this automobile carry out in each type of state of affairs and I believe we simply want to essentially dig in, open our information and begin to perceive what works for who and the place and I believe that’s the largest lesson.”
Da Costa has endured a tough begin to the Components E season
Picture by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Photographs
It hasn’t all the time been the case that da Costa has struggled to tame the Gen3 machine, launched for 2023, and final season supplied glimpses at what is likely to be potential.
Third within the inaugural Hyderabad E-Prix was adopted by victory in Cape City having pulled off the overtake of the season to grab the lead from Jean-Eric Vergne on the penultimate lap. It was da Costa at his greatest and showcased simply what is likely to be potential for a partnership that was nonetheless in its infancy.
Subsequent trip in Sao Paulo he overcame the one-lap deficiency of the Porsche powertrain to begin second earlier than ending fourth, which might have been far larger had he not missed the opening nook, requiring him to come back to an entire cease earlier than rejoining.
Yet another podium adopted in Portland however others slipped via his fingers via no fault of his personal, equivalent to being eradicated by Dennis in Berlin whereas disqualification for a puncture that dropped the tyre strain under the authorized requirement stripped him of one other rostrum in London.
Regardless, the 2023 marketing campaign had supplied proof that right here was a partnership that had the potential to flourish. As an alternative, steadiness points with Porsche’s newest challenger have meant da Costa has been left pissed off and on the lookout for solutions in 2024.
“I’d say that backside line is the steadiness I’ve been having within the automobile will not be suiting me in any respect,” says da Costa. “The steadiness was a problem after which the consistency of the steadiness was a problem.
“Particularly in Diriyah, it was actually laborious for me to have the ability to predict what sort of steadiness I’m going to have within the subsequent nook and, whenever you’re racing between partitions, it’s the most horrible factor you possibly can have.
“In fact I’m not going to brake late, after all I’m not going to hold extra velocity than anyone else if I’m not assured on what my automobile goes to do. So we attempt to perceive all of that.”
Da Costa has competed in Components E for the reason that inaugural season and can be drawing upon that have
Picture by: FIA Components E
In a championship as shut as Components E, any insecurity will solely be compounded the place the margins between every competitor are so minute. Not like nearly all of drivers on the grid, although, da Costa stays one in all a choose few to have raced within the all-electric class since its inception in 2014.
He’s confirmed able to racing and beating one of the best the sequence has to supply and, ought to da Costa get on prime of the issues which have plagued his season thus far, then he’ll undoubtedly be trying so as to add his present win tally of eight.
However previous successes shortly depend for little within the cut-throat world of motorsport and da Costa is all too conscious outcomes want to enhance quickly for his Components E profession to be revived, beginning this weekend in Brazil.
“I’ve seen different drivers going via comparable conditions,” he says. “I’ve seen all of them turning it round and, whenever you suppose any individual is lifeless, they arrive again from the lifeless and that’s what I’ve obtained to do. I’m removed from lifeless, of this I’m positive.”
