There’s a different feeling to the garage in the TAG-Heuer Porsche ?Formula E team this season. It’s not frosty, not unwelcoming, far from I, and neither better nor worse than last season. It’s just different.
There is no doubt that its two drivers Antonio Felix da Costa and reigning champion Pascal Wehrlein’s relationship has got a bit more distant. There’s a tenseness in the air and has been since the second round of the season in Mexico City, back in January.
“It’s a little bit more tense, I would say,” da Costa told FEN at Monaco.
“It’s something we keep internal for the moment and the job is clear. We get employed by Porsche and this job is to is to perform for the team, so ultimately, we keep pushing each other with more or less comms between the two of us.
“The goal is clear, and the information is available for both of us to feed off each other. And that’s what we do.”
Mexico City, when da Costa and Wehrlein got close in a tight battle with Oliver Rowland’s ultimately triumphant Nissan, felt like a bit of a bump in the road. Was it?
“Not for me, no,” replies da Costa.
“For me, that race was very straightforward. I felt it was actually pretty fun because I’d been struggling to qualify well in Mexico since we got this new Gen3 car, Pascal’s been like the king of Mexico since we’ve had this Gen3 car.
“That was kind of a test to myself. Like if I can be quick here, then I can be quick anywhere. And ultimately, we lost out in the last duel to him for pole. But we had the upper hand all weekend, to be honest in the race, I was able to kind of strategise our race well and we were on for a win.
“That three lap safety car, whatever it was, that brought Oliver completely back in the game. And he ended up winning that race with having a little bit of attack mode left. But, putting myself in a position to win in Mexico, that gave me a confidence boost that that I wanted.
“I know he was requesting to swap positions or something, but that message never came across to me. And he’s entitled to ask whatever he wants.”
The man in the middle is Florian Modlinger. Freshly publicized from his starring role as stern team boss in the recent Formula E documentary Driver which is running on Amazon Prime right now.
Modlinger had several well publicized run ins with da Costa last year. They seem to have been smoothed out after da Costa went on an impressive winning streak in May and June last summer. Since then, his form has been mostly strong this season too, Monaco race one apart.
“We are in the luxury that both are, from the beginning of the season, performing very strong,” Modlinger told FEN.
“In my opinion, you feel the competition of the two. There is only one world championship title, and both want to have it. And what is clear is that there is a natural competition. And from the performance they showed, from where they are sitting in the driver championship, it is a long, long, long way to go. But the start of both of them was good. And clearly there is a competition.
“If there would be no competition and one would say, you go first, something would be wrong. They are both racers, they want to both win.
“It is up to us and me to handle this and that we bring out the most for the team. And that is the most important thing.”
There will be some fireworks coming for sure. The added spice of whether da Costa is kept at Porsche or leaves adds just another element of fizz. Will the lid be kept on? It has to be for Porsche to add more titles to its 2024-25 drivers’ crown.
