Antonio Felix da Costa issues Jaguar defence after Porsche complaints

Antonio Felix da Costa issued a rallying defence of Jaguar following Formula E's season-ending London E-Prix, insisting Porsche's complaints about how he drove made the German marque "look stupid".

Team games were a hot topic across the final two races of the campaign, with Porsche having taken measures from qualifying on Saturday onwards to support Pascal Wehrlein.

Any Porsche-powered driver in qualifying – with the exception of the Andrettis – let Wehrlein win, before Nico Müller put on a bold defensive display in both races.

In both cases, Müller was defending against Mitch Evans, who accused the Swiss driver of moving under braking and brake-checking, although no penalty was awarded. The same happened at the start of Sunday's race, triggering Jaguar to activate an identical tactic.

Da Costa over-consumed energy to get ahead of Evans, Müller and Wehrlein before making his Jaguar as wide as a London bus to keep the German driver behind.

Wehrlein was furious with his former teammate, with the pair very much being heated rivals, firing a series of accusations after the race despite being crowned a two-time world champion.

The way da Costa drove is something he conceded he did not want to do, but he pinpointed that Porsche's complaints were ridiculous given that it had done the same thing all weekend.

Discussing his defending, da Costa told RacingNews365: "Yeah, I mean, firstly, it's not the way I want to race. But I didn't like seeing what they did [on Saturday], and they started it again from lap one [on Sunday]. 

"Nico just opening the gaps in a bad way, and when I saw that, I said, 'Okay, we had a plan B to react to that,' and that was not our plan A. And when I saw it, I said, 'Okay, we trigger our plan B, and we play their game.' We simply did what they did. 

"I know they're saying things; I haven't heard or read anything, but it just makes them look stupid, to be honest. You can't have it both ways. You cannot have it both ways in life. The Bible tells us to treat others like you want to be treated. So, it's very simple."

Da Costa versus Wehrlein

The finale was more than enough evidence that there is zero love lost between Wehrlein and da Costa, who spent three seasons as teammates at Porsche before the latter's move to Jaguar.

A rivalry, and an almighty one at that, clearly remains, with contact having been made between the duo in Tokyo last month.

Wehrlein described da Costa's driving in London as "one of the most unsporting and unfair things I have seen", while the Portuguese driver stressed that it was no different from Porsche's own tactics.

Asked if the defence meant more to him as it was Wehrlein behind, da Costa replied: "Yeah, I mean, of course, the past that we have helped me not have second doubts about driving this way. So, yeah, it is what it is.

"Again, he's done things to me that I've been way too nice about. Tokyo alone, two weeks ago, he took me out deliberately because his car was already broken. I'm a nice guy, but at some point, I have limits.

"So, but again, I didn't get a penalty; I did nothing wrong. We have a set of rules, a set of guidelines, and I did nothing wrong. So, they can be saying what they want, but it just makes them look stupid."