Sunday, March 1, 2020

Marrakesh ePrix 2020 Takeaways: Antonio Felix da Costa's dominating win, Mitch Evans loses momentum and more

If there’s one ingredient that is most-required to fight for the Formula E championship, it is ‘momentum’. After all, the grid is almost evenly matched, in terms of equipment, talent and opportunity to score big points. In the 2019-20 Formula E championship, Techeetah’s Antonio Felix da Costa and Jaguar’s Mitch Evans are two drivers experiencing such momentum. In the last two races, da Costa and Evans have out-scored 22 other drivers in the series while building towards their own championship aspirations.

However, in the 2020 Marrakesh ePrix, Evans experienced a major bump in momentum as an operational error in qualifying saw him not set a time and start at the back of the grid. What would have hurt Evans and Jaguar Racing more was that they set the fastest time in Free Practice 2, the session that preceded qualifying. Basically, they had the chance for pole but paid a heavy price for a late exit from the pits. On the other hand, da Costa made the most of his championship rival’s follies. The Portguese driver scored his first maximum points haul of the season – pole position, race win and the fastest lap of the race; adding 28 points to his season tally. In the fight for the Drivers’ Championship, da Costa (67 points) leads Evans by 11 points.

Qualifying and Super Pole

BMW’s Maximilian Guenther, the winner of the race in Santiago earlier in the season, clinched top honours in the group qualifying stage. Guenther’s margin was slender as three other drivers followed him with less than a hundredth behind, Porsche’s Andre Lotterer, Venturi’s Edoardo Mortara and the eventual race winner, da Costa. Mercedes’ Nyck de Vries followed his fine qualifying form by setting the fifth fastest time and was followed by former Formula E champion and Nissan driver, Sebastian Buemi. In the group qualifying stage, top-20 drivers were separated by a little over a second with Porsche’s Neel Jani, Virgin’s Robin Frijns and Nio’s Qinghua Ma joining Evans at the back with troubled sessions.

In Super Pole, da Costa’s pole time was nearly four tenths quicker than Guenther’s time in the group qualifying stage. In fact, the top-3 drivers bore a similar story as they were separated by less than a hundredth – Guenther narrowly edging Lotterer to the front row of the start grid. They were followed by de Vries, Mortara and Buemi – all of whom registered slower times than the group qualifying stage.

Race

Techeetah’s Antonio Felix da Costa started from pole and battled for the win with BMW’s Guenther for most of the race, reminiscent of their duels from Santiago. Guenther grabbed the lead from da Costa for a brief period before the Techeetah driver used the Attack Mode to his advantage to retake the lead. Formula E continued it’s trend of a different driver winning each race of the season, as da Costa scored his first win with Techeetah. The win was a sweet reward for da Costa and Techeetah as they came agonisingly close to the top step of the podium in the last few races.

Also attacking da Costa was his team-mate, Jean-Eric Vergne, who eventually settled for third place after running out of energy in the dying moments of the race. Vergne, who had contracted the flu, was forced to miss the practice session on Friday and got only 30 minutes of practice before the qualifying session. The lack of track time saw the reigning champion qualify and start from 11th. However, Vergne drove fabulously to score his first podium of the season and almost scored Techeetah’s first 1-2 finish of the season.

Mercedes’ de Vries was forced out of contention early in the race after a penalty for overpowering while regenerating energy. In fact, de Vries, who has proved to be competitive and on-the-pace in his debut season in the all-electric series, is yet to have a clean weekend without penalties or incidents. De Vries, also the reigning Formula 2 champion, certainly has the pace and package to claim his first pole and win in Formula E. Lotterer, who started third, continued Porsche’s trend of going backwards in the race as he finished an unexpected 8th place. Evans, who started in 24th and last place, drove a heroic race to finish in 6th place - a jump of 18 places. The Jaguar Racing driver scored a valuable nine points to hold second place in the Drivers’ Championship. Also continuing his trend of recovery races after poor qualifying was Audi’s Lucas di Grassi. The Brazilian finished seventh after starting in 13th place.

Drivers’ and Teams’ Championships

With eight races remaining in the 2019-20 Formula E championship, the battle for top honours is still wide open. In fact, Evans’ issues in Marrakesh are further proof of how slim the margin of error is in the series. BMW’s Alexander Sims, the early season championship leader, is in third place with 46 points. Sims has scored only 11 points in the last three races allowing his team-mate Guenther to close within two points distance in the championship. In contrast to Sims’ performances, Guenther’s 44 points have been scored in the last three races only, giving him a jump of four places in the uber-competitive Drivers’ Championship table.

Edging closer to the front is di Grassi, who is now in fifth place with 38 points. Also tied with 38 points is Mercedes’ Vandoorne, joining the list of drivers who is less than 30 points away from da Costa at this stage in the season. In typical Vergne fashion, the reigning champion has scored 27 of his 31 championship points in the last two races. Will he be able to mount a late championship challenge this season, too?

In the Teams’ Championship, Techeetah’s 1-3 finish in Marrakesh propelled them three spots and ahead of BMW to the top of the table with 98 points. In da Costa, Techeetah seems to have found a stable and consistent performer who has bettered Verge’s pace and position in the team in just the first five races of the season. After a few internal skirmishes in the last few races, the duo raced fairly in Marrakesh and is inarguably the strongest pairing in the Teams’ Championship battle.

At the moment, Techeetah’s nearest rival is BMW – only eight points behind. If BMW are able to replicate their early season form and score points with both cars, the battle in the Teams’ Championship will be a close one, too, at least for the first two spots. Jaguar Racing is in a distant third place, 24 points down on BMW. A bulk of Jaguar Racing’s points have been scored by Evans – 56 out of the overall tally of 66 points. After early season performance and standings, Mercedes slipped down to 5th place after no-scores in the last two rounds.

Mahindra Racing

The Indian-owned team would have arrived at Marrakesh with optimism and hope for two reasons. First, Mahindra Racing won the Marrakesh ePrix in the last two seasons. Second, the team recovered well in the last race in Mexico to score double points despite starting last on the grid. However, the 2020 Marrakesh ePrix wasn’t to offer the recovery that one would’ve hoped for Mahindra Racing. Jerome d’Ambrosio managed to show good pace in group qualifying by clocking the seventh fastest time, narrowly missing an entry into Super Pole. In the other Mahindra Racing car, Pascal Wehrlein could only manage a lowly 15th place. In the race, neither driver managed to finish in the points and add to the team’s tally of 17 points. Mahindra Racing is placed 10th out of 12 teams and trail Porsche in ninth place by eight points.

“It’s a bit disappointing because we had a good qualifying and it’s a real pity not to finish in the points when you start there. I struggled - the first lap wasn’t great - I was into P9 and then just didn’t have the pace and I struggled to gain anything in Attack Mode. We need to work to understand how to manage it better,” explained d’Ambrosio of his missed chances.

 



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