Few famous road car marques have had such an up-and-down racing journey as the iconic Jaguar. From the Le Mans glory in the 1950s to a stuttering 1980s sports car comeback that eventually came good by turning into world championship success and more Le Mans honour, only to be followed by a dismal Formula 1 effort at the dawn of the 2000s.

Over recent seasons though, the Big Cat has gradually built its strength in the hugely competitive Formula E jungle, improving year-on-year since its debut back in the 2016-17 season to turn itself into one of the powerhouses of the series.

Now, armed with a new state-of-the-art factory and the signing of championship frontrunner Nick Cassidy (to partner multiple race-winner and long-term Jaguar driver Mitch Evans) is the team ready to claim its first title in 2024?

A Formula E crown would send out the perfect message – the team and its drivers are the 180mph-ambassadors for Jaguar’s masterplan for its road car future, with the brand set to go all-electric in 2025. Despite the immense challenge in an increasingly competitive championship, team boss James Barclay is bullish, saying: “we have all the ingredients to win.”

The British squad first entered Formula E in 2016, but finishing dead last in the championship that year indicated electrified single-seater racing wasn’t going to be a straightforward task for the brand. However, results have almost always been on an upward trend for the team. A first win came with Evans in its third season at the Rome ePrix, with the New Zealander being a championship contender for the last three years.

Jaguar’s growth into a force to be reckoned with has been rubberstamped by how well it has taken to Formula E’s Spark Gen3, the British brand equipping its car with one of the must-have powertrains in the series – the I-Type 6.

With Evans in title contention until this year’s season finale in London, the team ultimately took second in the constructors’ championship, as customer squad Envision came home first.

Now, with fierce ambitions to take the top step in both title races, Jaguar is looking to attack Formula E’s 10th season.

Adding to the confidence is the brand new team factory in Oxfordshire, meaning it can now design, develop and manufacture its powertrain in a single location, as well as being equipped with an up-to-date simulator and ‘mission control’-style remote race garage operations.

For a team already established as one of the pre-eminent forces in Formula E, Cassidy enthuses that “everyone here is excited – this is huge for us.”

While Cassidy is the recent arrival, his new colleague Evans has been with Jaguar since the start in 2016, driver and team growing together. The Kiwi emphasises the importance of Jaguar’s increased commitment, and its significance on the journey to winning ways.

“The new factory has been a really special milestone for us as a team,” he says. “I’ve been here since the beginning and saw what we started with. In the first year we had around 20-30 people – now we have 130.

“To finally have a proper home [the team was previously based at Williams’ Formula 1 factory], with everything now under one roof, is great.”

Evans is now entering his eighth season with Jaguar, with a new “multi-year” contract announced last August that will keep him at the team until at least 2024. The total length of Evans’ commitment means that by next year it will be the longest driver-team relationship in the championship’s history. He explains what makes it a happy marriage: “I understood where we were from the start. Once we started winning, and Jaguar [the car manufacturer] became more and more interested, there weren’t many reasons to leave.”

Highlights include that breakthrough win in Rome, emerging victorious from a breathless three-car battle at São Paulo this season in which the top trio were covered by 0.5sec and claiming the spoils in the chaotic first round of a 2023 double-header in London.

Jaguar has now upped the stakes by signing Evans’ 2023 title rival and fellow New Zealander Cassidy from its own customer team and fierce competitor Envision Racing.

He joins an icon of the sport which garnered both racing glory and pioneered technical innovation with its C- and D-types at Le Mans in the 1950s, as well as the awe-inspiring Tom Walkinshaw XJR Group C inventions that proved to be La Sarthe rockets of the late ’80s and early ’90s.

Cassidy explains what attracted him to the historic brand with a culture of success both on and off-track.

“The name speaks for itself,” he says. “But ultimately there’s a huge resource here as well – to be part of the development team was very attractive. When I look at the team management, they understand racing.”

Cassidy is implying a lack of support from his previous employer Envision, when a team orders fumble during this year’s season-ending London event led to him colliding with stablemate Sébastien Buemi, losing out on the drivers’ title.

Despite the fact Envision would secure the constructors’ crown, it was an acrimonious end to a brilliant season.

Barclay emphasises how crucial it was to have a second strong driver in the car to help the team, making it keen to get Cassidy onboard.

“Speaking openly, we haven’t scored enough points across both cars in previous seasons,” he says. “If we had scored to our full potential, we probably would have won the championship by now. We needed to make a change to try and make that final step.”

Jaguar secretly can’t be happy that its customer Envision beat the works squad to the punch last year, even if it proved the brand’s powertrain is a winner. The fact that a different driver altogether, Jake Dennis of the Porsche-powered Andretti team, took the drivers’ championship shows just how tight and tough the Formula E grid is – to push home a cliché, every point counts. Cassidy emphasises that it’s a key element in making the championship so watchable.

“I think the Porsche cars will be very strong again,” he says. “With Mitch, the Envision cars, DS Penske – who I believe are the dark horses – you have six to 10 guys that can win. It really shows the competitiveness of the championship. It’s gonna be interesting!”

Despite the positive atmosphere around the Jaguar team though, the fact remains that its impressive race win tally looks slightly hollow when none have led to an actual title.

Team boss Barclay explains what he believes is needed to get the team over the line.

“We all know that consistency is the most important thing,” he says. “I think it’s pretty telling that we’ve been in contention for the past three years running. From my point of view, that’s all we can ask for – you have to keep on going, be consistent and things will fall our way. It’s just how the sport goes.”

With all of Jaguar’s battle-hardened Formula E squad now seemingly pointing in the right direction, it looks like 2024’s Season 10 could be the stage for Jaguar to put itself back on top of the world.

Continuing the bloodline

Jaguar’s rich racing heritage is owed not only to brilliant drivers like Stirling Moss and Mike Hawthorn, or latterly Martin Brundle and Jan Lammers, but also the groundbreaking cars they drove, such as the C-Type, D-Type and XJR-9. It’s a tradition that Jaguar’s Formula E team has looked to continue with its championship-winning I-Type 6 powertrain.

The 350kW (470bhp) unit was used by customer team Envision in claiming the constructors’ title last season, pipping the Jaguar works effort by just 12 points in the final table.

Jaguar team boss James Barclay, pictured here, says that an awareness of the Big Cat’s history in motorsport is key in its present-day approach.

“If you look at the original disc brake developed in the 1950s and used on the C-type, [which Duncan Hamilton and Tony Rolt took to victory in the 1953 Le Mans 24 Hours], that’s the standard technology on every road car now,” he highlights.

“That same philosophy continues today in that the race team is here to spearhead innovation and, most importantly, put Jaguar back on the top step of the podium.”