António Félix da Costa was the special guest of another F1 Eleven 1: 1, live, on Eleven Sports’ Instagram. For about 45 minutes, the 28-year-old Portuguese Formula E driver in the DS Techeetah team recalled several stories and stages of his racing career.
António Félix da Costa was appointed as the Portuguese promise of Formula 1 after signing a contract with Red Bull for the young driver program: “2012 was the year that I joined the Red Bull Junior Team and it seemed that there was magic, any car that sitting won”.
The young Portuguese driver recalled the story of his almost entry to F1: “At the end of 2012 I won GP Macau and Helmut Marko sent me a message saying that we would achieve great things together…”. “I made the Toro Rosso bench, I did the fact, I had scheduled flights to America and Brazil to do the free practice on Friday… Franz Tost called me almost every day and said“ you are going to be my pilot for next year “. I went 2 or 3 times to the Toro Rosso factory.”
The dream ended with a phone call: “I remember receiving Helmut’s call saying that the F1 seat was no longer available to me. I entered the room and started to cry drool and snot. I worked hard, believed and traveled my dream of reaching F1 during 15 years of career and saw the dream so close by fleeing on a call ”.
On the entry of Daniil Kvyat António Félix da Costa concluded: “There is politics in our sport and it was a plan that started being put together for Kvyat a few months earlier. What moved worlds was having a GP in Russia. ”
Referring to the Russian driver, António Félix da Costa said that “Kvyat is not a bad driver. Let’s assume a scenario, if I were maybe he would be in 5th or 6th and with him in 7th or 8th, it makes up for the crime, but note that he had a good first season in F1. Not bad, but the Kvyat looks like a cat, has 7 lives. Hit, get fired, come back, hit, come out, come back … Kvyat debuted in F1 with a 3-month contract, they signed him out of fear and I continued to prepare, riding F1 whenever I gave, but then he has a good start to the season and my chance is over. ”
António Félix da Costa played the role of test driver, simulator, and reserve at Red Bull from 2012 to 2015. From that time he recalls that “At GP Monaco Vettel wanted the car 2.5% softer and asked me to test it on the simulator, and it was the year he won there for the first time. ”
Regarding his relationship with Vettel António Félix da Costa says: “I always got along very well with Vettel. We were at the USA GP and he invited me to go on his plane to Brazil to spend 3 or 4 days in Rio de Janeiro before going to Interlagos. And ready, I went on the plane with him and Helmut was on a normal plane, Vettel did not invite him… I made this trip with him, we did surf, it was cool and he treated me very well, we got along really well. ”
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The cars of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber were, in the words of the Portuguese driver, “Very different, the 2 had very different driving styles, by the way my style was more similar to that of Webber. I had the car with the strongest front, which is also my style. ”
Comparing Vettel and Webber António Félix da Costa shared that “Webber didn’t ask for much, he arrived, guided and left. Vettel put in that extra work, which is why he won 4 world titles. ”
Regarding the possible move to Ferrari, António Félix da Costa said that “At the end of 2014, in Brazil, Vettel told me that he wanted me to go with him to Ferrari to support him in the simulator. Ferrari makes me a proposal, it is not worth entering numbers, but they paid 10 times more than Red Bull… I went to Helmut and he did not let me out and said that he did not raise me even a Euro. ”
António Félix da Costa, referring to the end of the relationship with Red Bull, in 2015, mentioned that: “it was a more bitter relationship with Helmut, I in my head already wanted to leave and so it was, leave at the end of that year, but the Ferrari coach had already passed. ”
In 2014 the Portuguese driver was about to race for Lewis Hamilton at the GP China. António Félix da Costa recalled that “In 2014 we were in China and after FP1 Helmut Marko told me that Hamilton was suffering from food poisoning and that Niki Lauda did not have their reserve driver there and wanted me to get in the car Mercedes. I shivered, I was going to make my F1 debut an hour later, but he came back after a few minutes saying that Hamilton had had an injection and wanted to do FP2 to see if he was okay. ”
Comparing current F1 drivers with whom he raced, António Félix da Costa concluded: “Of those that I ran, at the level of speed I put Bottas, Riccardo and Magnussen on the same level.”
About the Spanish driver Carlos Sainz, António Félix da Costa said that “Carlos is a driver that I always knew was top. When he ran with me he rarely stayed in front of me, but he was also 2 or 3 years old and at those ages it makes a difference. But at that time I looked at him and thought that at his age I couldn’t do some of the things he did. I am not surprised what he does today and I think that at Ferrari he will also prove himself as an outstanding driver. Carlos has a very strong mental strength and a very strong family structure around him. ”
On Max Verstappen the Portuguese driver did not hesitate; “Max, 15 or 16 years old, took a doctrine that none of us did and that’s why it is the outstanding person he is.”
In the opinion of António Félix da Costa about the future of Vettel and Mercedes: “Looking at Mercedes as a fan, it is a dream to see Vettel in Mercedes, the 2 best in recent years in the same car. For Mercedes it would be great to have a German driver as a huge name with him. But looking at Mercedes as a business, Mercedes has been investing many millions with Hamilton in recent years, who is a driver who requires very high maintenance, with a lot of manias and many wants. Why would Mercedes risk Vettel there, start a friction that there is no doubt that there would be between the two? So I’m not seeing Vettel go to Mercedes… Renault seems the most right for him. ”
