Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy returned to the Jeddah Corniche Circuit for a sweltering Free Practice 3, banking valuable laps as teams fine-tuned their setups ahead of qualifying.
In the opening stages, Evans slotted into fourth while Cassidy ran fifth, with much of the field focusing on longer, representative runs in the heavy conditions. As the session entered its final 15 minutes and the pace intensified, Evans surged to the top of the timesheets with a 1:15.320, while Cassidy sat 12th, 0.557 seconds adrift of his Jaguar teammate.
The closing moments brought a late shuffle at the front, with Andretti’s Jake Dennis edging Evans by just 0.093 seconds. Evans ultimately ended the session second overall, narrowly missing out on the top spot. Cassidy improved to a 1:15.817 but slipped to 14th by the chequered flag, 0.590 seconds off Dennis’ benchmark.
Qualifying
Evans was the first Kiwi to hit the track to qualify in a talent-loaded Group A, which featured Round 4 pole sitter Eduardo Mortara and Round 4 winner Pascal Wehrlein. The Jaguar TCS driver did not set a representative lap time until 2 minutes to go, when he posted a 1.17.352, leaving him fourth and with a shot at going through to the duels.
In a flurry of quick laps after the chequered flag, Evans was bumped out of the top four to finish seventh in Group A, which translated to a starting position of thirteenth.
Following a strategy similar to Group A, Cassidy and many other drivers left it until the dying minutes of the session to record their representative laps. Cassidy went to the top with three minutes to go with a 1.17.606, which was quickly beaten by Antonio Felix da Costa, who set a 1.17.215. Cassidy was the first driver to finish the session with a 1.17.380 and sat in third before the final flurry. His lap time was enough to go through to the duels, finishing the session above the cut line in fourth.
Cassidy was placed in quarter final four, where he faced off against Antonio Felix da Costa. The Citroen driver had an advantage of a tenth over da Costa, which extended out to a tenth and a half halfway through the lap. Da Costa clawed the deficit back to have almost no difference in lap time in the last stages of the lap.
However, any chance of Cassidy advancing further was over after a mistake led to him taking too much kerb on the second half of the final chicane, which gave away over half a second to Da Costa. Cassidy set a 1.16.050, meaning he finished qualifying eighth.
Race
In a very hotly contested first lap, Cassidy fell back to eleventh while Evans held position in thirteenth. Both Kiwis floated outside the top 10 for the first half of the race, and at the midpoint, drivers began to push harder and use up their attack modes.
Evans was the first Kiwi to do so, activating his short-term power boost on lap 15 and using it effectively to climb to fourth by the end of the four minutes.
In an attempt to break the strategy, Cassidy did not use a single attack mode until lap 23, where both were taken at once to try to make a last-gasp attempt to climb to the front. This strategy decision made Cassidy unhappy, and it was stressed to his team mid-race over the radio.
At the same time, Evans used his final attack mode, with a huge train of cars behind him, which allowed him to jump Wehrlein on the second-to-last lap. Evans finished the race in seventh place, and a frustrated Cassidy crossed the line fourteenth. Evans teammate da Costa took his first win for Jaguar TCS Racing, finishing three seconds ahead of Envision’s Sebastian Buemi. Reigning world champion Oliver Rowland completed the podium.
Cassidy’s pointless finish dropped him down to fourth in the championship on 48 points, one point ahead of Evans with 47 in fifth. Formula E takes a short break before Round 6 in Madrid, with on-track action starting on the 21st March at 4:30am NZST.
Header Image: Simon Galloway/LAT Images
