Duarte Maria de Ortigão Ramos Félix da Costa (born May 31, 1985 in

Cascais Cascais () is a town and municipality in the Lisbon District of Portugal, located on the Portuguese Riviera, Estoril Coast. The municipality has a total of 214,158 inhabitants in an area of 97.40 km2. Cascais is an important tourism in Port ...

) is a Portuguese

auto racing Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. In North America, the term is commonly used to describe all forms of automobile sport including non ...

driver and driving coach. He has spent the majority of his motorsport career participating in

touring car racing Touring car racing is a motorsport road racing competition that uses race-prepared touring cars. It has both similarities to and significant differences from stock car racing, which is popular in the United States. While the cars do not move a ...

, and would also take part in

sports car racing Sports car racing is a form of motorsport road racing that uses sports cars with two seats and enclosed wheels. They may be either purpose-built Sports prototype, sports prototypes, which are the highest level in sports car racing; or grand to ...

later on in his career.

Career history

Félix da Costa began his career in

karting Kart racing or karting is a motorsport discipline using open-wheel, four-wheeled vehicles known as go-karts or shifter karts. They are usually raced on scaled-down circuits, although some professional kart races are also held on full-size motor ...

and moved into racing cars in 2004 when he competed in the

Formula BMW Formula BMW was a junior racing formula for single seater cars. It was positioned at the bottom of the motorsport career ladder alongside the longer established Formula Ford category. Like Formula Ford, it was intended to function as the young ...

UK championship, where he raced for two years for

Carlin Motorsport Carlin, formerly known as Carlin Motorsport and Rodin Carlin, was a motor racing team based in the United Kingdom. It primarily competed in junior racing championships such as FIA Formula 2 and FIA Formula 3. Carlin also competed in top level ...

, finishing 13th and 10th in the championship standings.http://www.driverdb.com/drivers/2892/career/ Career statistics at Driver Database He moved to

Formula Renault Formula Renault are classes of formula racing popular in Europe and elsewhere. Regarded as an entry-level series to auto racing, motor racing, it was founded in 1971, and was a respected series where drivers can learn advanced racecraft before mov ...

in 2006, competing in the Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup (which his brother Antonio won in 2009) and the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0. SeatLeonEurocup

Having failed to win a race in single-seaters for three years, Félix da Costa moved to

touring cars Touring car racing is a motorsport road racing competition that uses race-prepared touring cars. It has both similarities to and significant differences from stock car racing, which is popular in the United States. While the cars do not move a ...

, racing in the

SEAT León Supercopa The SEAT León Supercopa was a one-make racing series, organised by SEAT Sport, the motorsport division of Spanish car manufacturer SEAT. It used a modified version of the SEAT León road car, and championships have been run in Spain, Germany, Italy ...

one-make series in 2007, finishing 9th. He would also race in the

SEAT León Eurocup The SEAT León Eurocup was a one-make touring car racing series which uses SEAT Leóns, run by SEAT Sport. Background The championship began in 2008, making its debut at Circuit de Valencia, as a support series for the World Touring Car Champi ...

in 2008, also finishing the season in 9th. That same year, Félix da Costa earned a one-off guest drive in the

World Touring Car Championship The FIA World Touring Car Championship was an international touring car championship promoted by Eurosport Events and sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). It has had several different incarnations, including a sing ...

with

Sunred Engineering Sunred (short for ''Sun Race Engineering Development S.L.'') is a Spanish-based auto racing team and constructor. They are best known for competing in the World Touring Car Championship. Racing History While in the past Sunred had participated i ...

after displaying strong performances at

Oschersleben Oschersleben () is a town in the Börde district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. The population in 1905 was 13,271, in 2020 about 19,000. History On November 23, 994 Oschersleben was first mentioned in a document by the Emperor Otto III. In 1235 ...

in the SEAT León Eurocup. He would return to the SEAT León Eurocup in 2010, finishing the season in 6th. In 2009, Félix da Costa competed in the Portuguese Touring Car Championship and would post a strong campaign, finishing the year in 2nd with three victories. He would also venture into sports car racing for the first time in his career, racing in the

International GT Open The International GT Open is a grand tourer-style sports car racing series founded in 2006 by the Spanish GT Sport Organización. It was a spin-off of the now-defunct Spanish GT Championship, but is now a distinct series featuring FIA GT3-spec ...

with Escudería Roger Racing alongside Miquel Julià in a Ferrari F430 GT3. Félix da Costa also competed in the

European Touring Car Cup The FIA European Touring Car Cup was an annual touring car racing event, which had been held at various locations across Europe from 2005 to 2017. Unlike in previous years where it was a one-off event, in 2010 the series was a three-round event. ...

Braga Braga (; ) is a cities of Portugal, city and a Municipalities of Portugal, municipality, capital of the northwestern Portugal, Portuguese Braga (district), district of Braga and of the historical and cultural Minho Province. Braga Municipality ...

for

British Touring Car Championship The British Touring Car Championship (BTCC), officially known as the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship for sponsorship reasons, is a touring car racing series held each year in the United Kingdom, currently organised and administered by ...

team

Bamboo Engineering Craft-Bamboo Racing is an auto racing team. It was founded in 2014 after the merger of Craft Racing from Hong Kong and Bamboo Engineering from the United Kingdom. Craft Racing was established by Frank Yu in 2009 and was a front running team in ...

in a

Chevrolet Lacetti The Daewoo Lacetti is a compact car manufactured and marketed globally by GM Korea since 2002. The first-generation Lacetti was available as a four-door sedan and five-door station wagon, styled by Pininfarina—and five-door hatchback styled b ...

alongside

Harry Vaulkhard Harry Vaulkhard (born 14 October 1985) is a British racing driver. In 2010 he raced in the World Touring Car Championship for Bamboo Engineering. Career Early career Harry's father, Nigel Vaulkhard, was a successful businessman in the Tyn ...

. He and Vaulkhard locked out the second row of the grid during qualifying, and Félix da Costa would finish in 8th and 7th for both races. Félix da Costa competed in the

Blancpain Endurance Series The GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup, formerly for sponsorship reasons the Blancpain Endurance Series from 2011 to 2015 and Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup from 2016 to 2019, is a sports car racing series developed by SRO Motorsports G ...

for 2011 with Leipert Motorsport, driving a Lamborghini Gallardo LP600 GT3 alongside fellow countrymen Lourenço da Veiga and Ricardo Bravo. The trio completed the season 3rd in the GT3 Pro-Am class. He would also take part in the 2012 American Le Mans Monterey race at

Laguna Seca Laguna Seca Raceway (branded as WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, and previously Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for sponsorship reasons) is a paved Racing track#Motorsport, road racing track in central California used for both auto racing and Motorcyc ...

the following year, finishing 31st in

LMP2 A Le Mans Prototype (LMP) is a type of sports prototype race car used in various races and championships, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans, FIA World Endurance Championship, IMSA SportsCar Championship, European Le Mans Series, and Asian Le M ...

. Since 2013, Félix da Costa has dedicated his time to coaching young drivers. He co-founded Synergy Driver Performance with Rodrigo Loyo in 2015 to elevate young drivers through their careers as they go through the categories of junior formula and sports car racing. In 2018, Félix da Costa returned to the

at the

Monza Monza (, ; ; , locally ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the Lambro, River Lambro, a tributary of the Po (river), River Po, in the Lombardy region of Italy, about north-northeast of Milan. It is the capital of the province of Mo ...

round, racing with Drivex School in a

Mercedes-AMG GT3 The Mercedes-AMG GT is a series of 2-door sports cars produced by German automobile manufacturer Mercedes-AMG. The car was introduced on 9 September 2014 and was officially unveiled to the public in October 2014 at the Paris Motor Show. While n ...

alongside Ricardo Baptista.

Personal life

Félix da Costa's younger half-brother

António Antonio is a masculine given name of Etruscan origin deriving from the root name Antonius. It is a common name among Romance language–speaking populations as well as the Balkans and Lusophone Africa. It has been among the top 400 most popular m ...

is also a racing driver best known for competing in

Formula E Formula E, officially the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, is an open-wheel single-seater motorsport championship for electric cars. The racing series is the highest class of competition for electrically powered single-seater racing cars ...

, also to whom Duarte serves as manager. Félix da Costa is married to psychologist Carlota Rocha.

Racing record

Career summary

Complete Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 results

( key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)

Complete Formula Renault 2.0 NEC results

( key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)

Complete World Touring Car Championship results

( key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Felix Da Costa, Duarte 1985 births Living people Sportspeople from Cascais Portuguese racing drivers Formula BMW UK drivers Formula Renault Eurocup drivers Formula Renault 2.0 NEC drivers SEAT León Eurocup drivers World Touring Car Championship drivers GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup drivers International GT Open drivers 24 Hours of Spa drivers European Touring Car Cup drivers Carlin racing drivers Koiranen GP drivers Drivex drivers Zengő Motorsport drivers Craft-Bamboo Racing drivers