Da Costa reveals team talk after Diriyah Formula E races is behind recent success

RIYADH: Formula E’s Antonio Felix da Costa has revealed he spoke with his team after the Diriyah races in Saudi Arabia, which has helped him to build momentum going into the season-finale races in London.

The TAG Heuer Porsche driver delivered a spectacular double victory in Portland, marking his third consecutive win amid a sea of enthusiastic fans at the Hankook Portland E-Prix last month, and will be searching for more victories in the last two races on July 20-21.

Having picked up no points in the first three rounds, the Portuguese driver has turned around his season to sit fourth in the standings after winning both races in Portland and the second Shanghai race. He revealed that discussions after the Diriyah race had been key to his impressive recent form.

“For every athlete, you need to build momentum,” said da Costa. “You don’t start winning and get to first place overnight. After the Riyadh race in the third round where we had zero points at that moment, it was then where I said that we need to starting building momentum slowly and I think we have done just that. In Sao Paulo, we finished sixth and been doing well since. We managed to win in Berlin and Shanghai and that set us up nicely mentally, but also worked on what worked for me and have been strong in races.”

With London set to host the final two races next weekend, da Costa is heading to the UK capital with an outside chance of winning the world championship. He is 34 points adrift of championship leader Nick Cassidy, however he will assess his options once the first qualifying session is over.

He said: “At the moment, we have been putting all our eggs in the basket to help our team win the championship and we still have a chance. We need to keep going with that mentality, but having said that, I would say let’s do the first qualifying in London and see where we stand and then take decision afterwards. We will prepare for London like as we do for every weekend.”