Antonio Felix da Costa has defended his aggressive tactics to hold up Pascal Wehrlein for much of the London E-Prix, while accusing the Porsche driver of deliberately crashing into title rival Jake Dennis.
With Jaguar’s Mitch Evans heading into Sunday’s Formula E finale with a 21-point deficit to Porsche rival Wehrlein, the Kiwi needed to win the race and hope Wehrlein finished outside the top 10 to keep his title hopes alive.
Da Costa consequently spent much of the race backing up Wehrlein into the field of cars behind, with the pair coming to blows multiple times as they battled for position.
The Porsche driver was incensed by Jaguar’s tactics, describing the London finale as the most unsporting and unfair” races he has ever witnessed while labelling da Costa a “sore loser”.
However, da Costa hit back at his former team, insisting his actions were triggered by Porsche deploying similar tactics on Saturday, when Cupra Kiro’s Dan Ticktum slowed down in qualifying and Nico Mueller backed up Evans in the race.
“I can’t deny that they made me a little bit angry with the games they played yesterday,” da Costa told Motorsport.com. “So we found a strategy to disrupt their own strategy and their own games.
“From lap one, Muller started to do the same thing and I’m glad I was able to put an end to that.”
“We haven’t done anything that they haven’t started. We did nothing wrong. They started playing these games, and we played them too, played them a little bit better.
“They can’t expect to do things to others and not get bitten back. It’s not the way I want to race, but once they started it, we had to do it as well.”
Da Costa fires back at Wehrlein
Da Costa was following Wehrlein later in the race when the Porsche driver hit Andretti rival Dennis heading into Turn 20, before also tapping Joel Eriksson’s Envision. The resultant melee dropped both title contenders outside of the points and ended Dennis’s chances of denying Wehrlein the drivers’ championship.
Dennis had already lashed out at Wehrlein after the race, describing the manner in which he and Porsche won as “embarrassing”.
Having got a bird’s-eye view of the incident himself, da Costa claimed his former team-mate deliberately took Dennis out.
“It’s pretty clear to me. That was a super dirty move. He took Jake out on purpose to secure his championship, fair enough,” said the Portuguese.
“But it says a lot about what he does, but that’s not for me to comment on. He did the same thing to me two weeks ago in Tokyo, so I’m not surprised.”
Da Costa and Wehrlein have had a fraught relationship in Formula E, with the pair famously not on talking terms when they raced together for Porsche.
The tension resurfaced on the final lap, when the outcome of the title race had already been decided in Wehrlein’s favour, as the pair continued to fight for position.
That prompted the latter to deliver a furious jibe on team radio: “Look at him. Still wants to fight. Sore loser. F*****g beat you three years in a row.”
Asked what he made of Wehrlein’s comments made against him and Jaguar, he said: “I’ve heard a few things here and there, but if he wants he can come and talk to me.”
Pressed further as to whether the fight between the two got personal, he added: “This year alone he’s done a couple of bad things to me, and then I don’t even want to touch on the personal past that I have with him, but you can see how other people race me and how other people race him, and that says a lot about the people that we are.”
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
– The Motorsport.com Team
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: motorsport.com
