FE Talk: Jubilation for Jaguar and Evans as Championship Challengers Crumble

It was an emphatic display by Mitch Evans and Jaguar Racing in the Mexico City ePrix as he led from start to finish with the win never in doubt. Evans now leads the championship by a point.

Antonio Felix Da Costa was the man on the move yet again as he climbed up the order throughout the race to take a second consecutive runners up spot.

Sebastien Buemi took his first points of the season, and it was a solid third place which will hopefully kickstart his season as he remains a long way behind the championship leaders.

It was a disastrous day for former championship leader Stoffel Vandoorne, Andre Lotterer who took pole position in Mexico and Sam Bird who was almost certainly going to be on the podium.

Lotterer lost the lead going into turn one as he was unable to shut the door on Evans and was forced wide and off line. Things did not get any better for Lotterer as he was bullied out of the way and then forced to retire from the ePrix following damage to the front of his car.

Meanwhile, Bird and Da Costa were making moves and taking advantage of mistakes by others on a very dusty, low grip Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

A struggling Nyck De Vries was dispatched by both drivers before Bird eventually overtook Buemi who defended for as long as he could. But, with the action all happening around the podium spots, it allowed Evans to drive away.

There are some days when the driver and the car are in perfect sync and whatever the driver wants to do, the car responds just as you want and it is a delight to drive. Evans and Jaguar had one of those days.

The Jaguar looked to be on rails and Evans had everything under control. It was remarkably similar to Evans’ first half of the race in Santiago but he lost pace in the second half of the Chile race, this time in Mexico the Kiwi built a handy margin and kept a consistent gap to Bird despite Bird having excellent pace.

In some ways we should not be surprised by the performance considering the speed Jaguar have shown so far this season and the way they have been able to develop the car strongly over the last 12 months.

Plus, Evans is driving beautifully. He’s a great talent and is just 25 years of age even though it feels like he has been driving single-seater racing cars at this level for at least a decade. The 2012 GP3 champion is smooth and clean as well as often being one of the most consistent drivers across a season, boding well for the remainder of the year.

Along with Da Costa, Bird and Alexander Sims, Evans will be a championship contender come London at the end of July.

Bird’s championship suffered a heavy blow as Envision Virgin Racing swallowed a bitter pill on Saturday. They had great pace with both drivers battling for the podium. Robin Frijns was t-boned by De Vries. Just pure bad luck for Frijns.

As for Bird, the smallest of errors and he was punished with a DNF as he hit the wall at turn three as so many others did before ending his day in the turn 14 barrier. These days are the most frustrating ones. When you know you have the pace but you come away with nothing.

If Envision Virgin Racing lose the teams’ championship by a handful of points or even 10-15 points, they can look back at the Mexico weekend with a headache.

Mistakes from others allowed Techeetah to pick up the points even though they have been making errors themselves. I have no idea why they allowed Jean-Eric Vergne to overtake Da Costa midway through the race when Da Costa was in attack mode, had more energy and had more pace.

Techeetah’s strange decisions cost both drivers at least 2-3 seconds because Da Costa was then allowed back by Vergne. All that messing around should have hurt Techeetah more but mistakes and bad luck for others meant Techeetah had a good day despite poor communication on the team wall for a second race running.

Stoffel Vandoorne was on for valuable points haul but he was the final turn three victim and his retirement means that no driver has scored points in all four races so far, the championship is wide open as it always seems to be the case in ABB FIA Formula E.

Sebastien Buemi’s podium was the first for Nissan this season. The banning of twin motors has hurt Nissan and they simply do not have the pace that they did last year. Last season, they had a fantastic car over one lap and were able to hold on during the race.

Now, Buemi and Oliver Rowland are unable to hook the car up in qualifying and the lack of one lap pace does not translate until good race pace so Buemi’s podium was executed due to an excellent performance by the Swiss driver but there is a lot of work to do for Nissan.

The wise old fox Lucas Di Grassi maximised his result even though Audi, similarly to Nissan, are yet to find the sweet spot with the Audi e-tron. Di Grassi hangs in there throughout the season and Audi generally improve as the season goes on so do not rule out the intelligent former Formula E champion.

Finally, it is becoming clear who has the strongest car and which drivers are likely to be fighting for the title this season. But, mistakes and poor execution is closing up the championship and the pendulum will keep swinging all the way until the final ePrix.

Excellence from Evans bodes well and a drive such as the one he executed on Saturday, is a big, bold statement to the rest of the field that Evans and Jaguar will be title contenders.

It has taken a long time for Jaguar to come good but to have an outstanding performance as they did in Mexico City is incredibly rewarding and will only bring in more confidence to a team which is growing and growing.