Mitch Evans has said that “there was a lot to learn” from his Jaguar TCS Racing team in the final round of the FIA Formula E World Championship in London in July.
The Kiwi star, who fell just short for the fourth season in a row, said the team have taken the experience from the heartbreaking final race in which he and team-mate Nick Cassidy lost-out to Tag Heuer Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein.
The British manufacturer did take the Teams’ Championship, which tempered the big cat’s disappointment, but for the drivers, it was tough to take.
“I think there was a lot learnt in London,” he told Motorsport Week, “obviously it’s no secret that both Nick [Cassidy] and I were extremely disappointed, but it’s a weird period because you’re upset with yourself, you’re happy for the team.
“Obviously the team want to avoid that in the future. Yeah, there’s going to be a few changes, say, how we kind of structure things, but kind of similar rules of engagement I would say throughout this year.
“But we need to just be better in those types of situations. I think the team open-ended that, that we could have done things a lot differently.
“It sucks you have to go through that to then be better, but it’s not easy for the team as well when you’re in a situation where you’re not able to do that, so I think the team is going to be a little bit more open-ended about that.”
Evans said that whilst the team has the issue of having two drivers who are “both hungry” for success, he stressed that “we just have to make sure we don’t have those mistakes again.”
‘You kind of numb those emotions’
Evans joked that, having fallen just short for the fourth season in a row, it was a “rinse and repeat” experience, but admitted he was “down in the dumps a bit, adding: “I would say last season was probably one of the worst of it, it takes a while to recover from that sort of stuff sometimes, but you’ve got to turn the page at some point.
“I’d say in this off-season, it’s been good in a way to have a new car to focus on development, testing days. and even throughout September, October we’re on track, so kind of mentally you can start to move on naturally. So, but yeah, it was tough, it was not easy. but time’s a good healer, so with the long off-season, you just get to the point where you just kind of numb those emotions, and you can’t really go into the next season with baggage, right?”
With Evans smiling and joking, it is clear he is starting from a blank page, and in doing so, there is another blank page in the form of the new car – the GEN3 Evo. Drivers have been concerned about the rapidity of the 0-60 time – 1.82 seconds – and how it affects them.
“Yeah, I mean the attack launch is impressive, he said, “it’s pretty violent, I would say. But, yeah, if there is an issue, you’ve got, honestly, like no time to react.
“I mean, 1.8 seconds at 100 kph, it’s pretty impressive. And then I think the tyre is going to be a huge talking point this year. I just hope we don’t end up sitting out of most of practice and save tyres because there is a bit of degradation.”
This seems to have a bit of a new tyre effect which we never had before here. But we have the same amount of tyres still so I just hope that doesn’t affect on-track running during practice.”
Evans is concerned that the threat of rain at the Anhembi Sambadrome will affect the race, conveying these concerns about the tyres and how they will cope with the wet weather, but says he hopes “the weather Gods on are on our side.”
