You can overtake at Monaco: Formula E showed how

May was incredibly busy for Jaguar TCS Racing with visits to arguably the two jewels in the crown of the Formula E calendar – Monaco and Tokyo. These are vastly different events but what they share is a sense that each venue has a level of prestige all of its own. Monaco needs little introduction, although for Formula E it presents a spectacle distinct to F1.

I think this is really important to emphasise because the sporting product that Formula E offers there is seldom replicated, and it is not uncommon for moves to be pulled off at Massenet and Mirabeau for example. This is something that the fans and TV viewers love and it’s not hard to see why.

My feeling about Tokyo is that it’s a city where Formula E should absolutely be visiting. For us it’s a phenomenal place to have a motor race in addition to showing our partners and fans that competing on the streets of one of the world’s greatest cities can truly thrive.

“At Monaco, Formula E presents a spectacle distinct to Formula 1”

I also believe that there’s so much more potential for this race in the future. That’s something the championship promoters will continue to build on in conjunction with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and its leader Governor Koike, who has been fundamental in making the Tokyo ePrix a reality.

Out on track Jaguar TCS Racing has been pushing incredibly hard, but there is no doubt that it has so far proved to be a really tough challenge this season. At Monaco we were back on the podium after an accomplished drive from Nick Cassidy, who fought up through the field to claim third position in wet conditions.

With our customer team, Envision Racing, winning that race after an inspired drive from Sébastien Buemi, the Jaguar I-Type 7 notched up its second win of the campaign so far – and the third win in as many years for the Jaguar powertrain around Monaco. That was super satisfying to accomplish after all the hard work that has been done this season.

In Tokyo we were presented with a similar dynamic to Monaco – the conditions were wet and treacherous over the double-header two-day format. With heavy rain on Saturday, we were again able to showcase the strong performance of our cars with both Nick and Mitch Evans right in the mix.

Unfortunately in Saturday’s race Mitch was clipped by Nyck de Vries and pitched in to the wall while in a strong points-scoring position. It was a huge 26G impact and the damage to the back of the car was significant but thankfully Mitch was uninjured. While de Vries was penalised, our race was run on that side of the garage sadly.

Nick drove a capable race and was able to utilise his mandatory Pit Boost energy top-up smartly, taking the opportunity to change tyres as the track dried. This contributed to a points finish with 10th place in addition to the fastest overall lap – scoring an extra point.

Sunday brought more drama as Mitch, pushing to the absolute limit as usual, made a rare mistake in qualifying and glanced the wall. I honestly can’t remember the last time that happened and unfortunately, with so little time between qualifying and the race in Formula E, there just wasn’t enough time to get the car ready to take the start.

Nick meanwhile had another solid run for more points with a hard-fought seventh position. This was a tenacious race for Nick that was well executed, coming through and making six positions from 13th on the grid.

Formula E is so competitive now that every position really has to be excavated by the driver and team. Nick got a bit compromised on his ascent by Edoardo Mortara’s Mahindra, which was ultra-defensive, and with the Tokyo track notoriously difficult to overtake on, this in all likelihood cost us a position or two.

Nick’s Attack Mode timings were fine from a strategic standpoint and we couldn’t fault the overall plan. He drove a fantastic race once again and the team made progress, and we did a good job to get higher up the order.

We now move on to Shanghai for another double-header, and another important one as the market in China is very important for Formula E and Jaguar TCS Racing. China is a country that we all love racing in and is also a crucial touchstone for the world championship, as the first ever Formula E race was held in Beijing back in 2014.

Now we are at the same venue as the Chinese GP, a good deal of the EV industry descends on the venue to see the latest technology from a racing viewpoint. It’s this dovetailing with the automotive industry that all the manufacturers in Formula E really find stimulating and Jaguar TCS Racing is at the forefront of that with many areas of crossover and technical development relevance to what we are designing and achieving in motor sport.

While that important work and experience is being honed off-track, on it there is no doubting that we are hungry to back-up the Jaguar I-Type 7’s win and podium in Monaco with further success to push ourselves up the points table. We are unused to not be fighting for titles, so the natural desire to get back to a winning position is really burning through every staff member in every department within Jaguar TCS Racing right now,