The story behind the crowning of Formula E's "cuckoo"

When Jean-Eric Vergne rocked up for the 2019 edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours, he was on the brink of becoming Formula E's first double champion and guiding the DS Techeetah squad to its maiden teams' title. But there was a looming issue: Andre Lotterer, his electric team-mate of the past two seasons, was about to move to new arrival Porsche and leave a vacancy.

That led Vergne to sit down for a coffee in La Sarthe with his good friend Antonio Felix da Costa to court his services and tempt him away from BMW Andretti. The Portuguese had been associated with the German manufacturer since a 2014 debut in the DTM - his consolation prize from Helmut Marko for missing out on the Toro Rosso Formula 1 seat to GP3 champion Daniil Kvyat.

Vergne has been more than just a driver for DS Techeetah since joining in 2016, when the Team Aguri squad was bought and renamed by Chinese sports management firm SECA. He was entrusted to tempt first Lotterer and then da Costa to join the team; it was his nest and one that he had taken to the top of the FE tree.

But rather than da Costa coming in and settling as a number two driver to Vergne, he outperformed and ultimately dethroned his team-mate to be crowned the 2019-20 champion. Like a cuckoo flying in, da Costa built his success by mimicking what had worked so well for Vergne in the previous two campaigns.

As DS Techeetah team principal Mark Preston explains: "[Vergne's] championships were defined on the weekends when he got out of group one [qualifying] to superpole, was then on pole and won the race. Antonio basically did the same thing."

But da Costa's eventual one-lap supremacy - he ended the season with an unmatched three poles - took its time coming to fruition. A late contractual departure from BMW Andretti meant three days of pre-season testing at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Valencia weren't enough to adapt to the new car, software and crew at DS Techeetah.

Combined with both drivers struggling with the E-Tense FE20's brakes, that resulted in 21st spot on the grid for the curtain-raiser in Saudi Arabia. And as Sam Bird claimed his ninth FE triumph and headed major FE converts Porsche (Lotterer) and Mercedes (Stoffel Vandoorne) on the podium, a tangle with Daniel Abt kept da Costa down in 14th, as Vergne retired with a steering issue. Although da Costa made it through to the superpole shootout the following day for the second race of the double-header, two big slides and a wall tap meant he was only fifth on the grid.

While the qualifying laps let him down initially, at least the car proved itself to have blistering race pace. In the third round in Chile, where he lined up 10th, da Costa looked odds-on for victory. Jaguar's Mitch Evans activated his two attack-mode boosts early to lead comfortably until a software glitch erased all speed. That left da Costa's BMW Andretti replacement Maximilian Guenther to ward off the advances of the black-and-gold machine for the win. A clumsy and heavy-handed pass at the hairpin looked to have given da Costa first place, until critical battery temperature issues dropped him to runner-up.

Here, a result of da Costa's late arrival was exposed. Despite reuniting with race engineer David Ladouce - they worked together in the World Endurance Championship to develop BMW's M8 GTE racer - their communication was awry. Da Costa complained that he'd been fed "incomplete or wrong" information regarding his battery condition. On the cool-down lap, driver blasted team.

"The way we executed the race [in Marrakech] was very good. It was clearly a sign for me that I was finally in full sync with the car" Antonio Felix da Costa

"We didn't get along well purely in terms of communication," da Costa reflects. "We love each other, but the way we were working together was not efficient; it was not correct. I was getting angry, then he was getting angry. It's not my style at all to yell on the radio.

"David was always super nice, and this is why we made the difference. We could be self-critical and that's the quickest way to improve. I talked to myself as well because I knew I would only help him if I remained calmer."

There were further issues for da Costa. As friendly as they were off track, the relationship with Vergne proved rocky when helmets were donned. That was seen most notably in Chile again, when Vergne tried to shed a damaged fairing by tapping the wall. As he pulled across the track to knock it off, he was close to colliding with his team-mate. "This is not how a factory driver works... what are we doing?" was da Costa's brusque response.

The pair went skiing in France after the race, but the partnership wasn't slick in Mexico either. Again the team was sluggish to swap its cars around. When da Costa was released late on from behind Vergne, he could streak clear and pass a slow Sebastien Buemi for second place, while Vergne missed out on a likely podium with fourth. Race pace was evident, but procedurally and in qualifying the title credentials were lacking. That was, until Marrakech.

Da Costa came out fighting, topping the group one runners and then snaring pole. What's more, he likely wasn't going to be duelling for position with Vergne, as the reigning champion lined up only 11th. But that was no meagre effort, considering he was recovering from a virus that forced him to miss first practice.

The qualifying issues had been amended, leaving it up to da Costa and his race engineer to master strategy. They did so emphatically, with da Costa confident enough to relinquish his lead to Guenther and drop behind to conserve energy. That allowed him to pounce back with 14 laps to go and streak to an astonishing 11.4s triumph.

PLUS: How Berlin's FE finale unveiled DS Techeetah's new rivals

"The way we executed the race was very good," says da Costa. "It was clearly a sign for me that I was finally in full sync with the car, the systems, the software, the team, the communication. It was a massive step forward. We had shown speed before, but I wasn't really mastering the car in Chile or Mexico. Marrakech, I was so solid with everything, I knew exactly what I wanted, what I could take from the car. To put it on pole was a big relief because everyone was saying, 'OK, you can race well, but you're not qualifying well.'

"Our answer was not only a decent qualifying but a pole position, so I was very happy with that. The way we executed the race, I knew what could go wrong from the year before [when he collided with team-mate Alexander Sims seven laps from home at the expense of a BMW Andretti 1-2], we had the maturity and I had the plan discussed with my engineer and crew. We knew that falling behind could be a possibility and we worked through the scenario and it worked out. That was very pleasurable."

But that momentum wouldn't be allowed to carry over. When laptops were shut and people filed out of the media centre and paddock in Marrakech, the departing message wasn't the usual, 'See you for the next race'. It was more a case of, 'Well, I hope to see you again, whenever that might be. Probably not for some time, though' as the coronavirus threat morphed into a pandemic.

All the cars were freighted to Valencia and locked up in the hope that a make-do race might be held at the testing venue. But as the "unprecedented" conditions grew ever worse, the FE season was officially suspended for three months as the Sanya, Rome, Paris, inaugural Seoul and Jakarta, Berlin, New York and London double-header races were all cancelled.

The eventual solution came courtesy of six E-Prixs held over just nine days and on three different circuit layouts all behind closed doors and exclusively at the Tempelhof Airport site in Berlin. FE would resume, but after a five-month wait.

"It's never good to have a break when you're on a roll," says da Costa. "These moments in your life, as an athlete, they come and go. I've had them before: in 2012 I could do no wrong in World Series by Renault, I won Macau, I got to GP3 and I would win. When I was told that the season was being postponed because of the pandemic, then it was obviously like, 'I need to find a way that once we go back, we try to stay on top' because we just put a massive target on our back."

All his rivals could do, though, was keep staring at that target. Guenther's inconsistency carried through, as he scored a win in race three but no other points in the German capital. Meanwhile, brilliant Mexico victor Evans was saddled to a Jaguar that had lost so much of its early-season promise, largely down to lack of balance.

"I hate to lose and I love to win, and that [nice-guy mentality] changes when the helmet goes on" Antonio Felix da Costa

Evans, the closest challenger to da Costa in the points heading into those final races - thanks in part to a stunning recovery in Marrakech from last to sixth after his team sent him out too late in qualifying and he failed to set a lap - was at a loss. That permitted da Costa to lead from the front in Germany. In the first double-header on the reversed circuit, he was a dominant polesitter (by 0.3s and 0.4s) and unflappable in the races. With a fourth and a second in races three and four, da Costa earned his coronation with two rounds to spare.

The cuckoo had arrived at DS Techeetah, copied the success of his champion team-mate and taken over the nest. But the avian analogy only stretches so far, for a cuckoo is a parasite - loaded with negative meaning. By contrast, da Costa is one of the most amiable faces in FE, proving that nice guys don't have to finish last.

"I'm seen as a very nice person but I think I also have a bit of a reputation of being quite aggressive. In my days in DTM, I always came back with a bit of damage to the car. I hate to lose and I love to win, and that [nice-guy mentality] changes when the helmet goes on."

Da Costa is talking to Autosport on his drive back from the office of the president of Portugal, having been awarded the Commander of the Order of Merit for his sporting success.