Sunday, January 11, 2015

Da Costa wins Argentina E-Prix



António Félix da Costa became the fourth different winner in four races as he claimed victory in a crazy ePrix around the streets of Buenos Aires in Argentina.

Félix Da Costa inherited the lead on the final lap after staying out of trouble in a race where Sébastien Buemi, Lucas di Grassi and Nick Heidfeld all enjoyed spells at the front before encountering problems.

Pole man Buemi retained the lead at the start while Heidfeld got the jump on Jaime Alguersuari on the run down to the hairpin at the first corner.

Buemi led the opening stint while Heidfeld used his fan boost to no avail, as Di Grassi picked off Sam Bird for fourth before diving up the inside of Alguersuari for third on lap seven.

Heidfeld hounded Buemi for the lead at times but was caught out at Turn 5 as Di Grassi made an opportunistic, but ultimately successful, move. Heidfeld subsequently went wide at the final chicane and lost places to Alguersuari and Bird, and only narrowly fended off Félix Da Costa.

Karun Chandhok suffered a right rear suspension failure on lap 16 and hit the wall at the chicane and with the race almost at the halfway mark the majority of the leaders dived into the pits, though the Safety Car was not deployed until a minute after the Indian's accident. 

This delay muddled up the pack, with the race leaders halfway down the train, behind rivals who were almost a lap down courtesy of being caught out when the race was neutralised. 

After several farcical laps the almost-lapped drivers were permitted to overtake the Safety Car and line up in the correct order and the restart was given on lap 23.

Buemi led away at the restart but clipped the wall on the entry to the final chicane, causing terminal damage to the front right of his e.dams machine.

That elevated Di Grassi into the lead of the race, ahead of Heidfeld, while Bird snuck up the inside of Félix Da Costa into the first corner, though the Briton's move was in vain after he was given a drive through penalty for running the red lights during his earlier pit stop.

Di Grassi began to edge away but he suffered a suspension failure at the chicane and slammed into the wall, handing the lead to Heidfeld, who initially had to repel Bird before the Virgin driver toured through the pits to serve his penalty.

Venturi driver Heidfeld consequently held a comfortable two second advantage over Félix Da Costa but with four laps remaining stewards deemed that the German was caught speeding in the pits during his mandatory stop.

Heidfeld served his penalty and Félix Da Costa thus took the lead but all hell broke loose behind him as several drivers scrapped for position.

Jean-Éric Vergne had been running in second position but was forced onto the defensive and ran wide at the first corner when Nicolas Prost made a move.

Prost was trailed closely by Alguersuari, Daniel Abt and Nelson Piquet Jr and as the group diced for position it was Abt who erred while attempting a move on Prost and clattered into Alguersuari.

Prost thus claimed second, while Piquet Jr took third despite believing that he wasn't on the lead lap and Alguersuari recovered from the contact to take fourth.

Vergne, who had previously damaged the front of his car after nudging Alguersuari, lost out in a last lap battle with Bruno Senna over fifth position, while Bird set the fastest lap as he recovered to seventh after his earlier misdemeanour.

Salvador Durán originally finished eighth but was excluded for exceeding the maximum power usage, meaning that Heidfeld, Oriol Servià and Stéphane Sarrazin rounded out the top 10.