Jaguar TCS Racing’s Nick Cassidy has spoken to Motorsport Week ahead of tomorrow’s Monaco E-Prix.
The Kiwi has endured a tough season post-Diriyah, having slid down the pecking order in the Drivers’ Championship amid a plethora of teams catching-up on Jaguar’s early-season pace, but Monaco might feel like a fresh start, given Cassidy, with Envision Racing last year, took a brilliant win, a win that lives long in the memory for him, which adds to the excitement of being back racing in the principality.
“I think, firstly, I’m really excited to be racing in Monaco,” he said.
“It’s, for sure, one of the best events on the calendar, and really special memories from last year, one of the biggest moments in my career, so looking forward to going back.
“In terms of confidence level, I’m pretty confident with what we’re doing as a team but we’ve certainly seen that performance-wise.
“We don’t have the best package at the moment and so we’re needing to work pretty hard.”
For Cassidy, Season 10 post-Diriyah has been full of trials and tribulations, and has seen himself slide down the pecking order in the Drivers’ Standings having led early on. Much of this has been down to the plethora of teams that have caught-up on Jaguar’s early-season pace, and despite this being detriment to the British team’s chances, Cassidy can feel vindicated, having quelled many predictions Jaguar were the team to beat, having told Motorsport Week during the long break between Diriyah and São Paulo that the likes of Nissan, NEOM McLaren, Maserati and both Porsche powertrain teams would be strong as the season progressed.
“It’d be quite good to bring my comments up from back then and show everyone because no-one believed me at the time, but I think everyone believes me now!”
After the last round in Misano, Jaguar went away having not fulfilled the potential of the weekend, with Cassidy retiring in the first race after a collision with Jean-Eric Vergne, but recovering to score a podium on the Sunday, after which he stated the Porsche powertrain is the best on the grid. Despite the handicap felt, Cassidy felt the team should have left Misano happy with what it achieved, and seems unhappy about the nature of the circuits creeping into the calendar.
“They’re [Porsche] the most efficient.
“I think I also mentioned DS, Maserati, McLaren, Nissan, Cupra, and so for us to get P3 when I think that there were probably 14 cars strong than us in Misano was a really good achievement.
“But at the factory, I’m going through data, going over theories, working on development because I’m not giving-up, we’ve just got to work harder, find performance.
“Now the Championship’s only racing on racing tracks, it suits other teams more than us, and we’ve just got to work to improve in those situations, so yeah, we’re still in the game but we know that it’s going to be tough because we don’t have the best package in those situations.
The topic of these sort of tracks being on the calendar was one of the big talking points during and after the Misano E-Prix weekend, having replaced the driver-popular Rome street circuit as the Italy venue for Season 10. Many drivers, including Cassidy’s team-mate Mitch Evans, voicing their concerns about more tracks of a similar nature – such as Silverstone – being included. With Formula E cars evolving, Cassidy isn’t particularly believing of this being a contributing factor.
“I think the that talking about the cars evolving and the performance increase is just an excuse.
“I think the best track that I’ve been in a Formula E car on was Rome.
“I think if you ask all of the drivers, 90 percent would tell you Rome and maybe 10 percent would say Riyadh.
“Those are the two best tracks for us, so certainly not a car problem, I would say, but it’s best I don’t say too much.”
Since this interview, the GEN3 Evo car has been launched ahead of this weekend’s E-Prix, and Cassidy confirms that the preparation into racing it next season has already begun.
“That work started a fair while ago.
“That’s one of the amazing things, being a manufacturer driver. With Jag, you have been part of that process and I’m really loving talking about strengths and weaknesses of the current car, and what we need from the next generation, so that’s for sure a topic for us and we’re pushing on that as well.”
