For the first time in Formula E’s short history, the series will race on a permanent race track, which has Kiwi duo Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy excited.
Two races are scheduled to be held this weekend at Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia.
Formula E is not entirely unfamiliar with the Spanish track, with it being the traditional home of pre-season testing. However, no E-Prix has been staged there before.
After another successful round at Rome two weeks ago, Evans sits second in the drivers’ standings.
Jaguar teammate Sam Bird is four points ahead of Evans as the championship leader. The British marque also fronts the Teams’ standings.
Evans says the target remains to continue to add points to the team’s tally looking ahead to the upcoming doubleheader.
“The Jaguar I-TYPE5 is performing very well on track,” Evans said. “We saw some more great results in Rome.
“However, we must continue to work hard and focus – especially during these events where we only have minimal preparation time – to ensure we maintain our strong race and qualifying pace.
“We are all working hard together and will be pushing for more points in Spain.”
For Cassidy, his rookie season continues to be an uphill battle against misfortune.
In the first race at Rome, Cassidy climbed from 22nd to tenth, which would have been his first points of the year. Unfortunately, a post-race penalty demoted him to 16th.
Cassidy then starred in a wet qualifying for race two, securing pole position and three championship points.
However, a spin on the first racing lap meant Cassidy fell back to 11th. After recovering back to seventh, Cassidy had his race end early after Oliver Rowland punted the Kiwi into the barrier.
But Cassidy says the pace from Rome was promising despite the lack of results, and he is all eyes forward for Valencia.
“Formula E can be so unpredictable and what happened in Rome will go down as just one of those moments,” he said.
“It’s super encouraging though to know we have both the qualifying and the race pace to compete at the sharp end, so I know the confidence is there to go out and look to score strongly.”
New Zealand viewers can watch each practice, qualifying and race live on Sky Sport 5, as well as the official Formula E YouTube channel.
| Session | Date | Time |
|---|---|---|
| FP1 | April 24 | 5.20 pm |
| FP2 | April 24 | 7.15 pm |
| Q | April 24 | 9 pm |
| R1 | April 25 | 1 am |
| Q2 | April 25 | 8 pm |
| R2 | April 26 | 12 am |
