With the season finale in London just over a week away, Motorsport Week has a round-up of what’s been making the news in the world of the FIA Formula E World Championship.
Da Costa set to stay with Porsche
Antonio Felix da Costa will stay with Tag Heuer Porsche next season, according to reports.
The Portuguese driver’s future with the German outfit was under threat early in the season, after it was revealed that the team had tested ABT Cupra’s Nico Müller between the Diriyah and Sao Paulo E-Prix weekends.
Since then, da Costa has been in scintillating form, winning four Formula E races, including both rounds in Portland last time out, as well as taking the chequered flag in Misano, before being disqualified.
These successes now leave him in fourth position in the Drivers’ standings going into the season finale in London on the 20th and 21st, giving him an outside but mathematical chance of claiming his second Drivers’ title, and retaining Porsche’s slim hopes of winning the Teams’ Championship.
It had been rumoured that a possible offer from Cadillac to race in the FIA World Endurance Championship was also in the offing, the series being one in which he had raced previously but has not this year at Porsche’s behest. But these as-yet unconfirmed reports suggest a resolution between both parties has been resolved, which will delight much of the FE community, with da Costa a popular and much-liked figure.
London finale to get free-to-air TV coverage
The final weekend of the season will be shown on free-to-air channel Quest, ensuring UK viewers who have no access through a television paywall will be given the opportunity to watch Formula E for the first and only time this year.
The controversial move was taken to move Formula E to a pay channel for Season 10, with TNT Sports chosen to broadcast the English-speaking feed of all race weekends, dividing opinion with fans who are unable to afford to follow the coverage, with recent FE seasons having been broadcast on Channel 4, who also showed all races on its YouTube feed.
The platforms on which Quest is available are listed below:
- Freeview: Channel 12
- Freesat: Channel 167
- Sky: Channel 144
- Sky Ireland: Channel 144
- Virgin: Channel 137
- Virgin Ireland: Channel 154
- BT: Channel 12
Wickens ‘grateful’ for Formula E opportunity
Former IndyCar driver Robert Wickens has extended gratitude to Formula E after driving a modified car over the weekend of the Portland E-Prix double-header.
Wickens, who was paralysed after a huge accident at the 2018 ABC Supply 500 at Pocono, revealed that earlier conversations with FE’s CEO Jeff Dodds had led to the opportunity.
Speaking to the media ahead of this weekend’s IMSA race in his home province of Ontario, Wickens said:
“That was my first time back in a single seater and I actually didn’t realise it, I read it after in act, so honestly, it felt great.
“I’m very grateful for the opportunity. Formula E called me up a week before Portland; I had met with the CEO [Jeff Dodds] when he was in town in Indianapolis last year and shred my ambitions with him on how I would like to explore Formula E as a career opportunity, and given the electrification of the series and the brake-by-wire, already adapted into the car, you know, it’s never simple but it would be that’s fine of the easier cars to adapt with hand controls.
“And he took that to heart and he went back behind the scenes and they were to adapt their GEN3 car with hand controls. They repurposed the regent paddles, one for throttle, one for brake, and off we went. There’s room for improvement but for the first phase, it was, I think, a great success.
“And it was awesome just to get on track and to feel what a Formula E car is all about.”
