Da Costa felled by chop from Jackie Chan car
The Jota Sport squad hadn’t taken a World Endurance Championship victory since Shanghai last November. A year later, but still in the same season, it finally claimed another LMP2 win in what team boss Sam Hignett described as a “bit of a nerve-wracker”. Last weekend’s Bahrain 8 Hours ended with its two ORECAs slugging it out at the front of the field for the honour of a spot on the overall podium behind the two Toyotas.
The ORECA-Gibson 07 run under the Jackie Chan DC Racing banner and the car fielded in Goodyear colours under the Jota name were more or less nose to tail over the final hour. The battle was resolved with a shade under 10 minutes left on the clock when Gabriel Aubry chucked the Chan/DC car down the inside of Antonio Felix da Costa at the downhill Turn 10 left-hander.
Contact was made and the two cars ran down the back straight side by side before the Frenchman sealed the position through Turns 11 and 12 to claim the victory for himself, Will Stevens and Ho-Pin Tung in what seems certain to be the Chinese entrant’s last WEC appearance. It was the first overall top-three for a P2 car since Jota got both its entries on the podium at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2017.
It was a forceful move by Aubry: da Costa reckoned his in-house rival “used me to make the corner”. But the 2019-20 Formula E champion, who co-drove as usual with Anthony Davidson and Roberto Gonzalez, wasn’t complaining.
