Karun Chandhok has provided one of the clearest explainers yet of why Dan Ticktum was hit with a penalty for his late-race tangle with Antonio Felix da Costa at the Monaco E-Prix Round 9, stepping in for Formula E's broadcast after Mitch Evans declined to offer an opinion on the incident.
"Mitch Evans wouldn't give you an opinion, so I thought, you know what, I'll weigh in here," Chandhok told Formula E's coverage, before walking through the moment frame by frame.
The key, according to the former F1 driver turned television analyst, was where the two drivers were looking, and when. "At this point, Ticktum still looking right. Now, as we move along, there's a key point here. Ticktum's on the normal line. He's not expecting da Costa to go past," Chandhok said.
"Keep looking. Now, he's looks left. Now, he's realised he's start his head has gone. So keep an eye on Ticktum's head. There, he's looking right. Now, he looks left. And at this point, he's realised da Costa's coming and he moves and he moves as a reaction."
That reactive move, Chandhok argued, came too late and put da Costa in an impossible position. "At this point, you could see there, they're already at the 50-metre board. So, it's too late for da Costa to change his line. It's too late for him to bail out of it. And he ends up there running into the back of Ticktum."
The verdict from race control reflected exactly that read. "I think that's what the stewards have looked at and I do agree, I think in the end they will judge that Ticktum changed his line, changed his trajectory in the braking zone, which you're not allowed to do," Chandhok said. "And that's unfortunately why Dan got the the penalty."
Chandhok also offered a strategic explanation for why Ticktum found himself defending so deep into the race. The British driver had led the early stages but had burned through too much battery energy in the opening skirmishes, leaving him exposed. "I think he's probably frustrated by the fact he lost track position to de Vries and Evans. You know, we had led early on, but in the end, he had used too much energy to fight them. And yeah, that defence bit too late and that's why he got the penalty."
The collision came as the field was already shuffling under pressure, with Nyck de Vries and Evans climbing through the order and da Costa fighting for the kind of late-race result that has defined his Monaco resume. Da Costa, who has previously won on the streets of Monte Carlo, was unable to recover meaningful track position after the contact left him with a damaged front end.
The Round 9 incident set up a contrasting Sunday at Monaco, with Round 10 producing a different storyline as Oliver Rowland recovered from early misfortune to take victory after a penalty for Edoardo Mortara. For Ticktum, however, the round will be remembered for an avoidable moment that Chandhok summed up clinically: a defensive twitch in the braking zone, one fraction of a second too late.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/chandhok-da-costa-ticktum-monaco-eprix-round-9-2026-penalty-explainer). Visit for full coverage.*
