Toward the end of the Marrakesh Formula E-Prix, both BMW drivers Antonio Felix da Costa and Alexander Sims crashed, costing them both the 1-2 finish they were about to have. It’s a crash that da Costa takes the blame for.

Sims was about to take the lead over da Costa, who had been leading the race for a long time at that point, but da Costa was trying to keep Sims off. The two collided going into Turn 7, which put da Costa out of the race but Sims was able to regain control and finish fourth. The two would have had a 1-2 finish, Sims and da Costa, respectively. Instead, Mahindra’s Jerome D’Ambrosio took the win in Marrakesh.

“I’m sorry, that’s a mistake and a mistake coming from me only,” said da Costa, claiming he denied the team a win. “[It’s] terribly frustrating in this story because we lost a win, we lost a one-two, and even if it was just me, Alex could have won the race.”

 

Despite leading most of the race, da Costa fully admits that by the end Sims was faster and he should have conceded the lead to him. “He was [quicker] today, yeah, especially at that point,” said da Costa. “In the last fifteen laps he was building an edge on me, he had more pace than me.”

“When [it] happened, I wanted to find the deepest hole in Marrakesh and put myself in it.”

Sims, however, isn’t quick to blame da Costa and feels that it was a team problem. “We all need to learn and work together,” he told Motorsport. “At that point, I think I had more energy than Antonio by a decent amount, but I just didn’t communicate my feelings with the team well enough.”

“Antonio and I get on, it’s not like there’s a breakdown in our relationship and we’re good friends, and we didn’t want this situation to happen obviously. But we’ll learn from it and move on.” said Sims.

 

da Costa also recognizes that the BMW team should have ordered him to give Sims the lead, which would have given the team a 1-2 finish. “Why that situation happened, I’ll talk about it with the team later – I would not have minded a team order to tell me to let him go,” said da Costa. “I would not have enjoyed [that], but I think that would have been the thing to do. Again, we will talk internally now and go from there.”

Still, da Costa acknowledges the crash was mostly his fault and he takes the blame for it. “We’re a team, we’re very strong together and I normally put my hand up for mistakes, so I’m putting my hand up for my bit.”

[Source: Motorsport]