Antonio Felix Da Costa has became the fourth different winner in as many races in the inaugural FIA Formula E series after a chaotic Buenos Aires ePrix.
At times, it looked like the former race winners (Lucas di Grassi, Sam Bird and Sebastien Buemi) would all have their shots at pulling off a double, but all came to nil.
Sebastien Buemi qualified his e.dams-Renault on pole position for the 35-lap event, fresh off of his vicoty at Punta del Este. Jaime Alguersuari started second, but it was Nick Heidfield who got the best start and had taken that spot from the Spaniard before the end of the first lap.
The first half of the event was run relatively uneventfully, with Buemi leading Heidfeld, di Grassi, Alguersuari and Bird shortly before the pit stops.
Right as the field began to make their way to the pits, Karun Chandhok suffered from an apparent suspension failure in his Mahindra Racing car.
Jaime Alguersuari led a group of cars down into the pits, and then things got confusing.
The Safety Car was deployed for Chandhok's incident, and the Alguersuari-led group reemerged behind it. Buemi then led a second group of cars into the pits, which emerged ahead of the Safety Car and continued to proceed around the track until they were nearly a lap ahead of the rest.
It took several laps for the Alguersuari-led group to be told that they could pass the Safety Car and catch back up, by which point several drivers were lost as to what lap everyone was on.
The race was back on, and Buemi retained the lead. That was … until he crashed out at the chicane.
This gave Lucas di Grassi the lead, who then suffered from a carbon copy suspension failure as Chandhok had earlier.
So that gave Nick Heidfeld and Sam Bird the top two spots, but then they both had to serve drive-through penalties for pit-road violations (Bird exited the pits when pit exit was closed, while Heidfeld was penalized for speeding in the pits).
Eventually, Amlin Aguri’s Antonio Felix da Costa found his name at the top of the scoring pylon, and that is where it remained until the checkered flag flew.
Meanwhile, a huge scrap was going on behind for around fourth position, where Jaime Alguersuari got booted out of the way by Jean-Eric Vergne and then ran into by Daniel Abt, who was trying to make a move on Nicolas Prost.
Abt was out while Vergne fell back and engaged in more car-to-car contact with Bruno Senna, while Jaime Alguersuari persevered to a fourth-place finish – behind Nicolas Prost and Nelson Piquet Jr. – the latter of which didn’t even know he’d finished on the lead lap.
Full results: (Updated following Salvador Duran's exclusion from eighth after exceeding maximum power usage)
Excluded: Salvador Duran
Points standings:
