The crash between the BMW i Andretti Motorsport teammates in the Marrakesh ePrix was a disaster. The points implications in the Formula E driver standings are even worse.
With under nine and a half minutes remaining in the 45-minute Marrakesh ePrix, which was the second race of the 13-race 2018-2019 Formula E season, BMW i Andretti Motorsport teammates Antonio Felix da Costa and Alexander Sims were running in first and second place, respectively, and they were well ahead of the rest of the field.
After da Costa opened up the season by delivering BMW i Andretti Motorsport their first ever Formula E victory in the Ad Diriyah ePrix, he and Sims were on pace to deliver the team their first ever 1-2 finish in Formula E.
However, the two drivers made contact, ruining their chances of doing so. Here is a video of this incident.
While this wreck itself was a disaster as far the individual race result was concerned, it was even more of a disaster when it comes to the driver standings.
Da Costa opened up the season with a pole and a victory in the Ad Diriyah ePrix, so he entered the Marrakesh ePrix as the leader of the driver standings with 28 points. He led second place Jean-Eric Vergne of DS Techeetah by 10 points, as Vergne scored 18 points as a result of his second place finish in the season opener.
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Sims opened up the season with an 18th place finish in the Ad Diriyah ePrix, so he entered the Marrakesh ePrix in an 11th place tie with all of the other drivers who failed to finish the season opener in the top 10 and thus scored no points in it.
Had da Costa gone on to win the race, he would be sitting in the lead of the driver standings with 53 points. Mahindra Racing’s Jerome d’Ambrosio, who won the race, would have finished it in third place behind da Costa and Sims and scored 15 points to go along with the 15 points he scored in the season opener as a result of his third place finish in that race.
Da Costa would have a 23-point lead (53 to 30) over d’Ambrosio in second place in the driver standings had this crash not occurred. Instead, he sits in a second place tie with 28 points with Vergne, who finished the race in fifth and scored 10 points despite the fact that he ran in sixth, which is worth eight points, when it happened, and they both trail d’Ambrosio by 12 points (40 to 28).
Had this crash not happened, here is how the top three would look in the driver standings.
- Antonio Felix da Costa – 53 points (-)
- Jerome d’Ambrosio – 30 points (-23)
- Jean-Eric Vergne – 26 points (-27)
Meanwhile, Sims would sit in fourth place in the driver standings with 18 points, and he would trail his teammate by 35. Instead, he sits in an eighth place tie with 12 points and trails d’Ambrosio by 28 (40 to 12).
The five drivers separating Sims from the top three in the driver standings have all earned between 12 and 19 points so far this season, and they all would have scored at least one less point in the Marrakesh ePrix had da Costa not dropped from the race lead and out of the top 10 even though many of them were unaffected by Sims’s drop down the order, as he only fell to fourth place behind d’Ambrosio and Envision Virgin Racing teammates Robin Frijns and Sam Bird.
Had it not been for this crash, none of these five drivers would have scored enough points to have earned at least 18 points in the season’s first two races by the time the race ended.
Everyone except for da Costa gained from this accident as far as being fewer points behind the leader of the driver standings is concerned, including Sims, and da Costa suffered in a big way as a result of it.
Will Antonio Felix da Costa and Alexander Sims bounce back from their disastrous incident that took place late in the Marrakesh ePrix? The third race of the 2018-2019 Formula E season, the Santiago ePrix, is scheduled to take place in just under two weeks on Saturday, January 26, so be sure not to tune in to it to find out.