Da Costa takes Marrakech EPrix win after battle with Guenther

Formula E

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Antonio Felix da Costa won the Marrakech Eprix after a race-long battle with Max Guenther. The victorious DS Techeetah driver was joined on the podium by his unwell team mate Jean-Eric Vergne who impressively raced from 12th on the grid to take third.

Da Costa made a clean getaway from pole position, leading fellow front row starter Guenther, the pair pulling out a small 2.5 second leads over Nyck de Vries in the first three laps.

Jean-Eric Vergne, who missed yesterday’s first practice session entirely due to a migraine, was already up to third within the first 15 minutes of racing, despite starting from the sixth row.

With just half an hour left on the clock, Guenther took over the lead from Da Costa. This looked like a tactical move from the Techeetah racer, tucking into Guenther’s slip stream, allowing him to save energy on an extremely high consumption course. Guenther was advised on the radio to watch his energy use.

Guenther’s radio messages grew more urgent as the race wore on and cars closed up behind him. With 18 minuted left the pack was much closer than it had been when he and Da Costa had initially got away, due to his energy-saving. Da Costa responded by activating Attack Mode and retaking the lead, leaving Guenther to fend off the attentions of Vergne.

Pascal Wehrlein pitted shortly afterwards due to a puncture. He emerged second-to-last, the delay spoiling a good recovery drive from an unusually low qualifying positio.

Vergne made his move on Guenther with eight and a half minutes to go, grabbing second place and a potential one-two finish for DS Techeetah. Guenther didn’t concede easily, the fight between the two allowing Da Costa to draw out a seven-and-a-half second lead.

By the final lap, the two were still battling for second with Vergne on just 3% of usable energy. Guenther finally wrested the position from him, and Vergne coasted over the line on zero, just holding on to third from Buemi behind.

Da Costa took the chequered flag with an 11 second lead, taking his first win for DS Techeetah after his move to the twice-champions.

Daniel Abt was shown the black and white flag for unsportsmanlike conduct in an incident with Felipe Massa during the final minutes of the race, without further immediate consequence. All cars reached the final lap of the race, until Alexander Sims retired with total drivetrain failure during the final lap – the brief yellow the only one of the race.

Da Costa’s victory makes him the ninth different winner in as many races, stretching back to last season, and gives him the lead of the championship by 11 points. DS Techeetah also lead the teams’ championship.

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Provisional Classification

1. Antonio Felix da Costa – DS Techeetah
2. Maximilian Guenther – BMWi Andretti (+11.427)
3. Jean-Eric Vergne – DS Techeetah (+12.034)
4. Sebastien Buemi – Nissan e.Dams (+12.282)
5. Edoardo Mortara – Venturi (+15.657)
6. Mitch Evans – Panasonic Jaguar (+16.335)
7. Lucas di Grassi – Audi (+18.706)
8. Andre Lotterer – Porsche (+19.498)
9. Oliver Rowland – Nissan e.Dams (+20.126)
10. Sam Bird – Envision Virgin (+20.295)
11. Nyck de Vries – Mercedes EQ (+20.557)
12. Robin Frijns – Envision Virgin (+22.373)
13. Jerome D’Ambrosio – Mahindra (+22.785)
14. Daniel Abt – Audi (+25.080)
15. Stoffel Vandoorne – Mercedes EQ (+25.969)
16. James Calado – Panasonic Jaguar (+26.528)
17. Felipe Massa – Venturi (+27.468)
18. Neel Jani – Porsche (+44.476)
19. Brendon Hartley – GEOX Dragon (+49.002)
20. Nico Mueller – GEOX Dragon (+53.075)
21. Oliver Turvey – NIO 333 (+59.969)
22. Pascal Wehrlein – Mahindra (+1:13.414)
23. Ma Qinghua – NIO 33 (+ 1 lap)
DNF Alexander Sims – BMWi Andretti

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Author information

Hazel Southwell
Hazel is a motorsport and automotive journalist with a particular interest in hybrid systems, electrification, batteries and new fuel technologies....

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8 comments on “Da Costa takes Marrakech EPrix win after battle with Guenther”

  1. Great races are the norm now in FE

  2. Yet Again Mercedes lost a Podium due to a Technical penalty…. And again the article doesn’t even mention it….

    1. I would like een explaination of those technical penaulties. because i don’t know what the hell that means.

  3. Is there any way to watch FE in the US without a VPN?

    1. In LA I found it on FoxSport 1 or 2, came here to see if the race was being discussed and saw the result !
      Maybe it ran live earlier but I just went back to the Football.

    2. YankeeF1 (@)
      2nd March 2020, 15:02

      Yeah – as @budchekov mentions, Fox Sports airs it in the US. Either FS1 or FS2 on any given race weekend. Seen it aired on those channels in both NY and Florida

  4. No Red Flag or SC. That’ll upset those who enjoy the usual crash strewn FormulaE races.

  5. It was a pretty good race overall. Although it seems like Mahindra has made a turn for worse compared to where they were 12 months back.

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