Mitch Evans scored a brilliant second place in the inaugural Madrid EPrix at Jarama on Saturday afternoon, carving his way through from a lowly 16th on the grid to complete a formation finish for Jaguar TCS Racing.
It was only the Big Cat’s third ever 1-2 in Formula E since it entered in 2016, its previous occasions being Berlin in 2023 and Monaco in 2024. The result has put the team on to the tail of rivals Porsche, and after scoring zero points from the first two races, three wins from four rounds was cause for much celebration in the pit after the Jarama win.
Yet……….it would not be Formula E without a considerable bit of friction.
The relatively late ‘hold station’ call came with Mitch Evans on teammate Antonio Felix da Costa’s tail but with a better energy scenario and big pressure from Dan Ticktum’s CUPRA Kiro, albeit with an energy deficit.
A thrilling encounter witnessed a feisty Evans crawling all over the back of his teammate in what was effectively his home race.
In the Jaguar TCS Racing pit, Ian James (team principal), Gary Ekerold (sporting director) and Josep Rocha (chief Engineer) were calling the shots while da Costa and Evans closer engineering team watched on nervously.
This is what Evans made of the call to hold the order:
FEN: Is it clearer this year than previous seasons on when it’s locked in or when there’s a team order?
EVA: No.
FEN: I think it came at the start of the last lap. Was it at the start of the last lap or the end of the last lap?
EVA: “It came as a surprise. I could see where Antonio was lifting off and I had a flat-out target. My target was huge. If we were free to race I’m really confident I would have passed him, just purely because of that.
“I think car balance-wise I was maybe just slightly stronger. Yes, it would have been a ding-dong, but we would have raced each other fairly. Again, that’s why if I got to him a few laps earlier maybe it would have been different. I would have liked to think that, but you never know.”
FEN: Thought on the actual battle with Antonio on the penultimate lap?
EVA: “I just wanted to stress my bosses a bit! Actually, it was more to protect myself from Dan (Ticktum) behind. Because that’s kind of how I got Dan in the first place. He was trying to stay behind Antonio and I was able to get around the outside of him. It’s like when the peloton races happen, you’re going side by side. If it flows then it protects your position a bit. So, it was more for that to try and to protect position.”
From the touchline……
Jaguar TCS Racing team principal, Ian James, also spoke with FEN after returning from a detailed discussion with the stewards regarding the investigation in to both of the Jaguar’s pit stops.
James, who replaced James Barclay at the team last autumn, described the call to hold the positions to protect the 1-2 position.
“I don’t think you can ever completely define rules of engagement for every scenario, that’s just not possible,” he said.
“You have to keep it as simple as possible. I’ve personally fallen foul very early on of over-complicating these kinds of situations (with Mercedes EQ. at London in 2022) and you always end up tripping over yourself.
“I think you have to trust the drivers to do what they need to do. Yes, we at the end made sure that we tried to mitigate the risk of having them both together, and in doing so we’d ask them to hold position at the end of the race.
“But I don’t think that that was unexpected, and as difficult sometimes as that is, it was the right call, and both drivers in the debrief have also stated that it was absolutely the right call, and they were comfortable with that.
What wasn’t clear was any pre-defined strategy for team orders, something that all teams are naturally sensitive of.
James didn’t shy away from the topic, saying that “what it does do, of course, is it starts opening up questions about, if that had happened earlier in the race, what the situation would be.
“That’s something that, as you go through a season, you discuss as a team, and as long as you’re open, transparent, and take the various different opinions in, and ultimately are clear in your decision-making, then I think that that’s absolutely fine,” opined James.
“Obviously, at the end of the race or during the end of the race, adrenaline plays its role, but once that’s out of the system and things settle, then we’re in good shape.
On whether or not he expected Evans to be so angry in the closing stages, James said that he “100%” was.
“The most important thing is his reaction once things have calmed down a little bit. In the debrief, he was the consummate professional, and I think we’re in a really good place at the moment.”
Evans , who is out of contract this summer, has recently been linked with a possible seat at the new Opel team.
