Jaguar Racing team has peeled the covers off Mitch Evans’ challenger for the 2021 Formula E season, just a few days out from the start of pre-season testing.
The I-Type 5 was unveiled over night, maintaining most of its electric blue and black colour scheme from previous seasons.
Underneath, however, is an entirely new powertrain developed in-house and revised suspension package, which has been brought forward and homologated for the next two seasons.
The team will be eager to make early amends after a disappointing slump in the championship last season.
Jagaur slipped from third to seventh in the constructor standings over just six races. Meanwhile, star driver Evans was comprehensively defeated in the title fight after a bizarre dip in form over the final few races.
The Kiwi admitted after the season that losing the title had hurt him for several weeks. But he added that the work done between Berlin and the start of the 2021 campaign has been largely positive and he is expecting another competitive year.
“It was a really tough few races [in Berlin],” said Evans. “And also afterwards, the aftermath of Berlin was tough to accept.
“How much we came together during that week to try and solve answers and just find little bits of improvement in performance was really impressive to see and that’s obviously given us a massive boost of motivation coming into this season.
“It hurts, but hopefully it’s only going to make us stronger and faster on track.
“I’m really looking forward to getting into the car in Valencia and then obviously Santiago is actually not far away as well so just a lot of excitement.
“There’s been a lot of R&D that’s gone into this new car, a huge testament to the whole design team back at the factory, just a huge push to try and improve things and keep it moving forward because we know the other teams are not standing still. So far everything looks positive and we’re hitting our targets which is the main thing.”
Jaguar Racing team director James Barclay also praised the team’s work between seasons.
“There’s over 1000 new components,” he said. “There’s some really cool technology in the car – we actually use 24-karat gold in the invertors.
“We looked at all the areas not only to improve efficiency, but to reduce weight and lower the centre of gravity.
“We’ve not only looked at the marginal gains, every area we can find an opportunity, but also, where possible, if there are any bigger steps to achieve, we’re looking to try and find those as well.”
To add to the excitement next year, Evans will be one of three Kiwis on the grid for the opening round in Santiago in January.
Super GT and Super Formula champion Nick Cassidy will make his debut with Envision Virgin, while Tom Blomqvist was a late signing for NIO 333 last week.