Just Electric

Jaguar Racing: First Win Achieved, and More Possible

Heading into season five, Jaguar Racing was a team who were on the rise. After having spent season three as a learning year, the points finishes and podiums were starting to rack up during season four which begged the question, when would the breakthrough win come?

The season started with the confirmation that both Mitch Evans and Nelson Piquet Jr, the season one champion, would be staying with the team for a second season and the launch of the car in central London.

Wins 1

Poles 1

Fastest laps (top 10 only) 0

Teams’ Championship position 7th (116 points)

Drivers’ Championship position Mitch Evans – 5th (105 points); Alex Lynn – 18th (10 points); Nelson Piquet – 22nd (1 point)

Jaguar had a mixed season in terms of results this season, but arguably the highest point they had was Mitch Evans securing his and the teams’ first victory in Rome. He was also able to add in another podium in Bern for good measure. These results showed that Jaguar had come a long way since their first race in Season 3.

Arguably the biggest weakness for the season though was how reliant they seemingly were on Evans for scoring points. Granted, he was the only race driver to complete the full season at the team but still, Alex Lynn should be commended for the job he did in the second half of the season.

One of the other low points of the season for the team was the Asian rounds in Hong Kong and Sanya as both Evans and Nelson Piquet had poor qualifying sessions but whilst Evans was able to recover to the points, Piquet ended up racking up a brace of retirements in what would turn out to be his final races for the team and in the series for the time being. Berlin was also a low point for the team after Lynn retired through a technical issue and Evans was unable to score points.

#3 – Nelson Piquet & Alex Lynn

The #3 car certainly had a season of two halves to use the old football cliché. The first half of the season saw Formula E’s first drivers’ champion, Nelson Piquet, in the car and during this part of the season, it almost seemed as if something wasn’t 100% right as the Brazilian driver was struggling to match the performances of Mitch Evans. A monster crash in Mexico City, where he hit the back of Jean-Eric Vergne and was launched skywards before clipping the rear of Alex Sims’ BMW and hitting the wall at Turn 17 was also a low point for the car. In Piquet’s defence, he did out-qualify Evans on a couple of occasions but was unable to convert these into better results in the race. 

In contrast to this, Alex Lynn, it can be argued, did a good job despite a lack of mileage and having to pretty much learn the nuances of the Gen 2 car as he was going. A couple of Super Pole appearances in Berlin and the first New York race also helped to put forward a case to be considered for a drive with the team for Season 6. Arguably the lowest point for Lynn was the collision which caused him to retire from the Paris E-Prix.

#20 – Mitch Evans

Mitch Evans came into this season in a good position on paper within the team, having had the measure of his more experienced teammate over Season 4, and would be looking to build on this in Season 5 – which he did. The highest point of the season was securing both his and Jaguar’s first win in Rome and also adding in podiums in Bern and the first race in New York.

Whilst some of his qualifying results weren’t as strong as hoped, the race craft which was shown to make it back through the field and score points was first-rate. The collision on the final lap of the season in the second race in New York with Lucas di Grassi was a low point as was getting lapped in Paris but, on the whole, the consistency shown by Evans was a factor in him placing as high as he did in the standings at the end of the season.

Rob Lomas

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