Kiwi Formula E stars Nick Cassidy and Mitch Evans faced separate issues in the Mexico City E-Prix over the weekend, leading to the Jaguar TCS Racing drivers leaving the event without adding to their World Championship tally.
Evans, who started fifth, failed to finish the race following a late collision with the Andretti of Nico Müller, which experienced a legality cut in front of the Kiwi, leaving him with nowhere to go.
Evans had started strongly and ran fourth after using his first Attack Mode, and was eighth at the time of the impact, which came with his final boost still remaining.
“I started in fifth, so I was hoping for a better result, the race wasn’t fantastic and the incident at the end was unavoidable,” he said.
“I was right behind Nico (Müller) but he had an issue and suddenly slowed. I tried to react but I just caught his left‑rear, so there was nothing I could really do. Overall, it was a disappointing outcome so we have work to do before the next race in Jeddah.”
Cassidy, meanwhile, had his qualifying lap time deleted for a technical infringement, confining him to the back of the grid for the race. He slowly picked his way through the field, but was compromised by an untimely safety car shortly after activating his first Attack Mode- a 6 minute allotment- on Lap 27.
He made several overtakes once he activated his final two minutes of Attack Mode, but could only climb as high as 12th.
“Today has been really frustrating,” he said after the race. “As a team we made fantastic progress this weekend.
“We started with a challenging FP1 but made all the right steps to have a really strong car for Qualifying. I was able to get into the Duels with only delivering one push lap which was incredible, so to have my lap time deleted was really frustrating.
“Mexico City is a hard track to overtake on so starting from the back made it hard to progress. We will now look ahead to Jeddah and spend time in the gap continuing to improve our performance.”
The race was won by Nissan’s Oliver Rowland, who managed late overtakes on the Porsches of Antonio Felix da Costa and Pascal Wehrlein.
Rowland had activated his final Attack Mode just moments before Evans crashed out, but still had one minute remaining on it on the restart, where he was fourth.
Rowland sliced by Dennis into Turn 1, Wehrlein into the chicane with a late stamp on the brakes and made it beyond leader da Costa as the field headed into the Foro Sol stadium, passing three Formula E champions to hit the lead, which he held until the chequered flag. Da Costa was second and Wehrlein third.
All that saw da Costa leave atop the Drivers’ standings ahead of Rowland, 37 points to 25, while Porsche heads McLaren in the Teams’ table 58 points to 29. Porsche lead Nissan by four points in the Manufacturers’ World Championship.
Formula E heads to Saudi Arabia for a maiden trip to Jeddah for Rounds 3 & 4, a double-header under the lights on the Corniche on 14 & 15 February.
