How an overlooked F1 talent found his true calling

Whatever Antonio Felix da Costa does for the rest of his career, even in retirement - if he's ever called upon to open a local supermarket or switch on the Christmas lights - he will now always be introduced as a Formula E champion.

In the five previous seasons of FE, no one had ever won the title with two rounds to spare, but da Costa did. A trio of consecutive pole positions preceded three largely unchallenged victories, split across Marrakech and in Berlin last week. That's a fine return for a driver who was overlooked by Formula 1 and whose junior career was typified by the word 'nearly'.

Prior to Sunday night's fourth Berlin race, when he clinched the crown with second place behind DS Techeetah team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne, his most recent title - a 2009 Formula Renault 2.0 NEC crown - helped earn an Abu Dhabi young driver F1 test call up with Force India the following year. He was slower than team-mates Paul di Resta and Yelmer Buurman, but had by no means disgraced himself.

PLUS: How Formula E's open title fight was defused in two races

Da Costa earned Red Bull backing for his second season of GP3 in 2012, before adding a parallel Formula Renault 3.5 programme after five races, joining Arden Caterham in place of the axed Lewis Williamson. Remarkably, he then won four of the last five races to end the year fourth in FR3.5 points and third in GP3, before clinching a Macau Grand Prix win for good measure. Suddenly, he appeared to be Red Bull's next big hope.

It was enough to earn da Costa another official test shot, and on his return to the Yas Marina circuit, he guided the RB8 that had just sealed Sebastian Vettel his world title hat-trick to third in the times. Then at Silverstone in the July test of the following year, he ranked 14th in the RB9 successor.

Not exactly spellbinding, but nevertheless, at the end of the 2013 season with Mark Webber set to retire from F1 and be replaced by Daniel Ricciardo, there was a seat to fill at Toro Rosso alongside Vergne. The Portuguese made it down to the final two, but having finished third in FR3.5 behind fellow second-year driver Kevin Magnussen and category rookie Stoffel Vandoorne, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko would instead favour newly crowned GP3 champion Daniil Kvyat. Nearly, but not quite.

Of course, in the fullness of time, Kvyat would come to replace Vettel at Red Bull before being dropped back to Toro Rosso mid-way through 2016. The Russian would then be dropped after a difficult 2017 but received a lifeline to re-join the team in 2019 and has remained there ever since.

If da Costa had been picked over Kvyat, then Max Verstappen might not have been on a trajectory to win last weekend's 70th Anniversary Grand Prix. But that hypothetical chain of events is for another day...

"I had my seat fit done, the talks were there for me to do the last two Fridays of the year. Then in the last moment, the phone call from Helmut was actually like 'you know what, mate, the seat is not available anymore'" Antonio Felix da Costa

Speaking to Autosport for an episode of the Current Affairs FE podcast, da Costa explained: "The way the Red Bull junior team worked, when they first want to put you in the F1 car - be that for a test to become a reserve driver - that's already your racing contract as well.

"I signed that pretty early on and I did a lot of days and kilometres on track with various F1 cars from the team. Midway through 2013, I was their number one option. I was living in Milton Keynes with Daniil Kvyat and Carlos Sainz, Tom Blomqvist was there as well.

"Dani went for a late charge and won the [GP3] championship, and that's when everything kind of turned around for me. I had my [race] suit done, I had my seat fit done, the talks were there for me to do the last two Fridays [first practice sessions] of the year.

"Then in the last moment, the phone call from Helmut was actually like 'you know what, mate, the seat is not available anymore'."

Da Costa had just seen his best chance of making the grand prix grid disappear. But what Marko took away with one hand, he gave with the other to launch da Costa on a long path to the FE crown.

"The same phone call, Helmut also told me I was going to race in DTM for BMW on a three-year deal," he says. "At the same time, Red Bull had denied me a late chance of going to F1, but they also gave me a career. Today, I live really, really well knowing all that."

A German tin-top switch never developed beyond a muted affair - three seasons returned a best championship position of 11th for Team Schnitzer in 2015, with a victory in the second race at Zandvoort to boot.

By this time, da Costa had already embarked on his FE calling. He joined the Aguri squad co-founded by former McLaren, Arrows and Super Aguri head Mark Preston. The electric move came for the series' second ever race in Putrajaya in 2014, where da Costa would finish eighth. After a mechanical retirement in the next race in Punta del Este, it was a case of third-time lucky for the Portuguese driver. He took victory on his third start in Buenos Aires before missing the final two London races, but still returned a decent eighth in the standings.

He was then hamstrung in 2015-16, as Aguri took the decision to continue with the standardised season-one powertrain rather than develop its own for season two. The hope was for an early reliability advantage, and that software upgrades could minimise the performance deficit.

Alas, the Aguri strategy didn't go to plan in a campaign plagued by car trouble, with technical woes costing da Costa a podium in Putrajaya (below) and another victory in Buenos Aires. An under-pressure right-rear tyre then sent him to the back of the grid in Long Beach after putting the car on pole. In the final race of the season at Battersea Park, da Costa finished fourth but having over-consumed energy was demoted to ninth prior to a track-limits penalty.

All told, he slid to 13th in the points before moving to the Andretti squad to replace Simona de Silvestro for the 2016-17 season. Not incidentally for da Costa, this came as Andretti announced a technical partnership with BMW, paving the way for today's factory team, and at the same time as he shelved his DTM career to concentrate fully on FE.

Also playing out in the background, Aguri had been sold to China Media Capital, who would retain Preston as team principal and rebrand the concern as Techeetah.

Fifth place in the Hong Kong opener proved a high watermark, leaving da Costa to decline to 20th in the standings with one points finish as team-mate Robin Frijns ran to 13th. A modest climb of five places the season after preceded BMW's full entry into the series with the arrival of the new Gen 2 cars for 2018-19.

Whereas in an alternate chain of events, two-time FE champion Vergne might once have helped da Costa settle at Toro Rosso, he instead smoothed the transition to DS Techeetah

No fewer than 1435 days since his maiden triumph, da Costa would return to the top step of an FE podium with victory in the season-opening Saudi Arabia race having claimed his first official pole. He would line-up first for the subsequent Marrakech race too, before colliding with team-mate Alexander Sims six laps from home.

When Porsche joined the FE ranks for the current term, it called upon the services of three-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Andre Lotterer to lead the team. That left a space alongside Vergne at DS Techeetah. A coffee and a chat at the 2019 edition of the French enduro was enough to put the wheels in motion for da Costa to end his long-term affiliation with BMW and join the ranks of the PSA Group.

"The way these [PSA] guys commit to a racing programme - being in the [World Rally Championship] with Citroen or in the Dakar with Peugeot or [World Touring Cars] with Citroen... they do it to win and they always do," da Costa said after winning his FE crown. "It's hard to deny that [DS Techeetah and the PSA Group] do a better job. They just reduce the bad days massively."

Whereas, in an alternate chain of events, two-time FE champion Vergne might once have helped da Costa settle at Toro Rosso, he instead smoothed the transition to DS Techeetah. Both battled through their lack of confidence in qualifying to retain the team's standing as the pre-eminent force in FE, their 1-2 finish in race four in Berlin returning successive constructors' titles.

There have been moments of fracture. Vergne was labelled a "fucking idiot" for nearly running da Costa into the wall in Santiago as he bid to shed damaged bodywork. They again stumbled over one another next time out in Mexico City at the cost of a double podium.

Even at Tempelhof Airport last week, in race one Vergne said over the radio: "OK guys, there is no more rules now," in deference to da Costa supposedly ignoring a pre-agreed protocol to manage pace and conserve energy - which preceded Vergne dropping from second to 20th after a crash with Lucas di Grassi.

Come the fourth race, Vergne had indeed remembered it. But rather than hinder, he graciously followed instructions and moved over for his team-mate to take first place and provide a one-car buffer should a late threat from the pursuing Nissan e.dams of Oliver Rowland and Sebastien Buemi develop into something more severe. In a show of good faith, the positions were reversed late on and Vergne would score the first win of his title defence.

The easy and oft-said epithet is that da Costa is the nicest operator in the FE paddock. Testament to this, he heaped the praise on his team and his stablemate. And then, rather than bask in the glory of his moment, da Costa chose to be utterly grateful.

"I have no words right now," he said between tears. "Just the bad times really come to my mind because [I was] so close to giving up sometimes and, thanks to the people around me, I never did.

"But more than that, thanks to these guys [at DS Techeetah, formerly Aguri] who I raced with in season one. They knew what I could do even when I was finishing nowhere. They brought me back."

He went further too, crediting the people that had ended his F1 ambition.

"Red Bull, they were the ones who really projected me because I was about to give up," he said. "And within three months of joining them, I'd driven four [F1] world championship-winning cars. After that, the ones I really need to thank is the BMW family. Life is like this, we go our separate ways sometimes but you guys turned me into a professional racing driver."

Instead of making his F1 debut at the dawn of the turbo-hybrid era, da Costa took the all-electric plunge. He streamlined his career and rebuilt to dethrone his double champion team-mate. When Vergne won his first title, he was approached by an F1 team - believed to be Toro Rosso - about a return for 2019. But should da Costa receive the same offer, six years after he was shut out, it will be his turn to close the door on F1 in the ultimate act of personal redemption.

"[F1] is not for me anymore," he says. "No, there's young kids coming through the ranks and it's for them. I'm so happy with where I am in this championship. I've never had as much fun as I have here.

"I understood that there's more to life than Formula 1. You almost forget to have fun and to understand why we do this. Formula E really shows us why."