Porsche’s appeal of Antonio Felix da Costa’s three-minute penalty from the first 2023 London E-Prix will affect the outcome of the race according to the driver.
Da Costa stormed through the field from 17th place to cross the finish line in second place behind Mitch Evans, but was disqualified for a technical infraction that was judged to be below the tyre pressures set by Hankook.
The Portuguese driver slid to 16th after being penalized for being 0.5 bars under the 1.2 bar tyre pressure limits established by Hankook due to a puncture.
Porsche informed the FIA’s International Court of Appeal (ICA) of their intention to appeal the ruling. The team will declare whether or not they will file an appeal at a later time.
“We are going to court with it,” Da Costa said. “I think it suspends all the classification because there’s 18 points hanging in the air for us.
“They mean a lot to us. For myself, I really want that second place because it was a hell of a race and we deserve it. We just deserve it. That’s it. It’s as simple as that.
“So I just want the common sense and the reason that we have human beings running as stewards is to not only go by the rulebook. We need to have the human side otherwise, we can have AI running.
“If it’s just about running a rulebook then we don’t need humans, so I hope that for the justice of the sport we get that back.”
Porsche lost a chance to win the teams’ championship on Sunday as a result of Da Costa’s penalty. The German manufacturer finished fourth, 10 points behind their customer team Andretti.
As a result, the Porsche driver will move up from ninth to fifth in the Formula E driver standings thanks to Da Costa’s 18 points from the opening London race.
“For the first year with Porsche that would be a nice little achievement for me,” added Da Costa. “So there’s a lot of little things hanging in the air for us there and I really want that second place.”
