Team: Team Aguri
Drivers: Antonio Felix da Costa and Nathanael Berthon
Team Principal: Aguri Suzuki, Mark Preston
2014/15 Championship: 7th – 66 points
Team Aguri had a below average introduction to life in the Formula E championship. The highly rated Antonio Felix da Costa partnered Salvador Duran for the majority of the season, with the Portuguese driver missing three rounds due to his DTM commitments. Despite this, he finished a respectable eighth in the drivers’ championship with 51 points and the team’s only win under his belt.
Katherine Legge, Sakon Yamamoto and Takuma Sato all made brief appearances for the team, but none were able to score points – Sato and Yamamoto retiring from their races whilst Legge finished fifteenth in both of hers. Salvador Duran brought home fifteen points for the Japanese team, who will be hoping to move up the grid in season two.
Aguri will be one of two teams to start the season with last year’s powertrain, with Andretti opting to temporarily revert back to the McLaren – based unit after suffering from reliability issues with their own. Whether this hurts the team’s chances in 2015/16 remains to be seen.
Driver Name: Antonio Felix da Costa
Nationality: Portuguese
Formula E Races: 8 Formula E Wins: 1
2014/15 Championship: 8th – 51 points
Da Costa started his single-seater career aged just 17, moving up from karts to the Formula Renault 2.0 series. He coupled his drives alongside outings in the A1 series, before joining the Red Bull young driver programme in 2012.
After missing out on the Toro Rosso F1 drive in 2014 to Daniil Kvyat, Da Costa signed up to Amlin Aguri for the inaugural Formula E season, but missed the first and final two rounds due to his prioritised DTM commitments. Da Costa scored points in all but two rounds of the Formula E rounds he competed in, retiring from Punta del Este with a mechanical failure.
His and the team’s highlight came at Buenos Aires, where a race of attrition allowed Aguri and Da Costa to take their first (and so far only) win after becoming the fourth race leader in ten laps.
Aguri have a fast, safe pair of hands in Da Costa and both will be looking to add to that single win in season two.
Driver Name: Nathanael Berthon
Nationality: French
Formula E Races: 0
Formula E Wins: 0
2014/15 Championship: N/A
26-year-old Berthon does appear to be an odd choice for Aguri, but one that they will be hoping pays off. Despite having won the French Formula Renault 2.0 championship in 2009, Berthon has so far only managed one win in four GP2 seasons.
There is a quick driver somewhere in Aguri’s new recruit, with the Frenchman having picked up four podiums – including a win – in FR3.5 and he stood on the podium in the Bahrain GP2 sprint race earlier this season. Having a fast teammate such as Da Costa may well help to bring out the best of Berthon.
