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 |
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