Antonio Felix da Costa was left seething and confused at the decision to hand him a five-second penalty for a clash with Norman Nato in Saturday’s Sanya EPrix.
The decision cost the Jaguar driver a second place finish to Jake Dennis, and left him confused by the rationale of the sanction.
It occurred at the re-start of the interrupted race which was red flagged on lap 19 following an incident involving Mitch Evans and Zane Maloney that triggered a temporarily blocked track at the corner.
Upon the re-start da Costa was jockeying for position heading in to Turn 6 but was deemed to have ‘made a sudden movement to the right, resulting in contact with Car 23 (Nato) according to the Stewards decision report.
Additional detail ran as follows: ‘The Stewards note that Car 13 moved to the right while approaching cars ahead. Even if the manoeuvre was made in an attempt to avoid the cars in front, ultimately the drivers remain responsible for braking appropriately for the circumstances ahead. While avoiding an incident may in certain circumstances require evasive action, drivers remain responsible for anticipating the conditions ahead and reacting accordingly.’
Stewards consulted the specially developed FIA Formula E Driving Standards Guidelines for the judgement. But it was complicated by da Costa not being shown a black and white warning flag for a previous incident. The report detailed that this was not shown due to a ‘technical issue.’
On the incident itself, da Costa disputed the ultimate decision, stating that he understood that “the gap in front of him (Nato) closes, but it’s essentially lap one of the race, because we are restarting that lap from a standing start, tyres cool down a bit, we need margin.
“There was always going to be a pile-up in that corner,” added da Costa. “We just need margin. It was he who was the only one who hit someone.”
Da Costa and Nato both frequented the stewards’ room after the race and brought forth their opinions. The Nissan driver, who ended his race early after being taken out by Pascal Wehrlein (who received the same penalty as d Costa (a five-second time penalty).
Nato personally believed that da Costa’s penalty was “harsh” on him in the contet of the incident.
“Antonio was on the inside of turn six, I was on the outside and you are arriving in the hairpin and sometimes they stop because they have to, not because they want to brake test you.
“So, Antonio was on the inside and when he saw that I was in front and I was kind of slowing down, on braking he went to the right. But I was already there and we had quite a big contact on the back of his car.
“I would say this one, especially on lap one of the restart, it’s a bit tricky for everyone in the car. I know that it was not really his intention to do that. And that’s unfortunate for him, because he lost some positions.
“The FIA are trying to penalise a bit more like the moving under braking things. It’s something we discuss together, so I feel like we had some room to trying to do some steps in the right direction. Maybe this one was a little bit harsh for Antonio, because for example, Pascal put me completely out of the race, he gets a five-second penalty too.”
