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

By:

Matt Kew

Sep 10, 2020, 3:40 PM

After departing the BMW Andretti squad, Antonio Felix da Costa landed at DS Techeetah as team-mate to a double Formula E champion. It didn't take long for the Portuguese driver to knock Jean-Eric Vergne off his perch

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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.

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Matt Kew

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Matt Kew is Autosport’s F1 Editor, a role he has held since March 2022 following stints covering Formula E, Extreme E and the British Touring Car Championship.

Matt joined Autosport in 2018 to work predominantly on the magazine, but his relentless quoting of Alan Partridge meant office colleagues soon thought he would be better-suited to increased field work.

Needless to say, Matt had the last laugh when he won the Motorsport UK Young Journalist of the Year Award in 2019.

His interest in motorsport was sparked by regular trips to watch ASCAR crash around Rockingham’s banked oval.

Matt read politics and philosophy at the University of Sheffield - receiving first-class honours for his dissertation assessing the lack of female participation in top-tier motor racing.

He covered a wide variety of national race and rally meetings for Autosport as a freelancer before joining full-time. His best efforts to argue the merits of historic racing are undone by a questionable taste in music and James Bond actors.