Da Costa wins in Ad Diriyah to start fifth FE season
Antonio Felix da Costa claimed victory in the opening race of the 2018/19 Formula E season in Ad Diriyah after starting from pole position.
The BMW Andretti driver was able to keep hold of the lead even after stopping awkwardly at his grid slot.
Season four champion Jean-Eric Vergne rose up the order during the opening laps from fifth and was able to take the lead 20-minutes into the 45-minute race.
However both him and Techeetah team-mate Andre Lotterer, along with Venturi’s Felipe Massa and Da Costa’s team-mate Alexander Sims, were given a drive-through penalty due to a technical infringement.
Da Costa retook the lead but the gap to the drivers behind was wiped out due to the safety car coming out so that Dragon car of Jose Maria Lopez could be retrieved, after the Argentinian stopped on track after hitting a wall and damaging his left rear tyre.
Vergne had moved back up to fourth before the safety car, and inherited third from Lopez. Vergne and Da Costa both had one activation of attack mode left to use when the race restarted, which meant Vergne was able to quickly get around Mahindra’s Jerome d’Ambrosio.
Da Costa had to hold off Vergne in the final two laps of the race to take the victory, his first in FE since winning the Buenos Aires E-Prix in season one.
D’Ambrosio kept hold of third place to complete the podium after originally starting the race from sixth place.
Mitch Evans finished fourth for Jaguar, ahead of Vergne’s team-mate Lotterer.
Sebastien Buemi started the race from third place but fell down the order, finishing up in sixth.
Oliver Rowland, Daniel Abt and Lucas di Grassi finished seventh, eighth and ninth respectively after all three started the race outside of the top 10.