Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Berlin E-Prix: Likely champion Da Costa tops Sunday FE practice

DS Techeetah driver Antonio Felix da Costa, who will likely win the Formula E title this afternoon, went quickest in Sunday practice on the conventional Berlin circuit

If the Portuguese driver wins the E-Prix at the Tempelhof Airport later today, he will be guaranteed of the 2019-20 championship.

Similarly, carrying a 68-point lead over Maximilian Guenther, all da Costa needs to do is finish the race with a 60-point advantage to seal the crown.

He came out of the blocks fastest in the single 45-minute practice session, topping the leader board with a late full-power run to supersede nearest rival Guenther by 0.039s.

A tame practice run was led by Venturi driver Edoardo Mortara for much of the opening half as drivers circulated in a standard 200kW powertrain setting.

But as they escalated through the 235kW attack mode and then 250kW full-power map late on, it was Envision Virgin Racing duo Sam Bird and Robin Frijns who led the way - despite a Turn 10 lock-up for Frijns and Bird complaining of first-corner understeer.

They were joined by Audi factory driver Rene Rast to complete a provisional top three lock-out for the e-tron FE06 powertrain.

But then Dragon Racing's Nico Muller became the first person to switch to full power mode, which put him top of the times on a 1m06.666s with eight minutes to go.

Once again the Penske EV-4 showed promising one-lap pace, which has so far not carried through for drivers Muller and Sergio Sette Camara in the races.

Reigning FIA Formula 2 champion Nyck de Vries posted the fastest first two sectors to depose Muller by 0.109, but he too was quickly replaced by Mercedes team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne.

Although his title hopes took a dash in the Saturday race when he retired followed a puncture, Vandoorne bounced back with a decent 1m06.474s.

In a fight for bragging rights on home soil in the German capital city, BMW Andretti driver Guenther then ran to first place by a 0.116s.

Da Costa twice endured large brake lock-ups in the session, first over the bump into Turn 6 and then into the Turn 9 hairpin.

But he recovered well to end the session with an unmatched 1m06.319s.

Nissan e.dams driver Oliver Rowland slotted in third behind Guenther, leading Vandoorne and with Sebastien Buemi a solid fifth in front of de Vries.

Jaguar's Mitch Evans - who showed promising fastest-lap pace in the preceding day's race - ran to seventh ahead of reigning champion and Berlin race three polesitter Jean-Eric Vergne.

Sam Bird held off the advances of Lucas di Grassi for ninth, with Muller dropping to an eventual 11th.

Berlin E-Prix IV practice results

Pos Driver Team Car Gap
1 Antonio Felix da Costa DS Techeetah DS 1m06.319s
2 Maximilian Guenther BMW BMW 0.039s
3 Oliver Rowland Nissan e.dams Nissan 0.131s
4 Stoffel Vandoorne Mercedes Mercedes 0.155s
5 Sebastien Buemi Nissan e.dams Nissan 0.218s
6 Nyck de Vries Mercedes Mercedes 0.238s
7 Mitch Evans Jaguar Jaguar 0.257s
8 Jean-Eric Vergne DS Techeetah DS 0.305s
9 Sam Bird Virgin Audi 0.319s
10 Lucas di Grassi Audi Audi 0.337s
11 Nico Muller Dragon Penske 0.347s
12 Alex Lynn Mahindra Mahindra 0.439s
13 James Calado Jaguar Jaguar 0.441s
14 Edoardo Mortara Venturi Mercedes 0.448s
15 Sergio Sette Camara Dragon Penske 0.531s
16 Robin Frijns Virgin Audi 0.613s
17 Felipe Massa Venturi Mercedes 0.615s
18 Andre Lotterer Porsche Porsche 0.628s
19 Rene Rast Audi Audi 0.629s
20 Jerome d'Ambrosio Mahindra Mahindra 0.899s
21 Neel Jani Porsche Porsche 0.959s
22 Alexander Sims BMW BMW 1.141s
23 Daniel Abt NIO NIO 1.148s
24 Oliver Turvey NIO NIO 1.215s

Be part of the Autosport community

Join the conversation
Previous article Vergne: Broken regen paddle and software issue cost Berlin E-Prix victory
Next article Berlin Formula E: Vergne leads Techeetah 1-2 in qualifying

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe