Jaguar Racing led the team’s score charts scoring the highest 171 points on 15th August, 2021. This came as one of its race cars drivers Mitch Evans secured his fifth third place podium finish in the semi-final round of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, progressing five points off the lead. Participating jointly in races with Sam Bird, he has gathered such acclamation for himself. However, things were a bit challenging for his team mate Sam Bird who is in eighth 14 points behind the leader.
The highly skilful driver has earned most podiums for any drivers so far in this season. Mitch Evans just missed out on Super Pole after graduating seventh in the 14th round of Season 7. In the event, team The Kiwi had were off to a solid boost right from the beginning displacing Sebastian Buemi’s position right around the first corner while Evans sampled the high performance of his Jaguar I-TYPE 5 by scudding and manoeuvring to make his way amidst the cars galore. He did put behind some stalwarts such as Jean-Éric Vergne, António Félix Da Costa, René Rast and finally Norman Nato and gained the third spot. One of the fiercest contemporaries of him, he emerged victorious in handling Venturi driver while the race was in its final phase before concluding.
While things shone with tremendous refulgence for him, the other driver Sam Bird was plunged in an imbroglio as a technical issue struck with his car prodding him to retire back to the pavilion. However, he did manage to rise to the 12th incumbent. Unfortunately, he was jabbed with a three-place grid penalty from London. Where most drivers use the strategy to start vapidly and gain momentum eventually, Bird acted with cognizance right from the beginning leaving two of his rivals behind right from the start to conquer the 13th place.
Mitch Evans finally stood on the 4th position in the ABB FIA Formula E Driver’s World Championship, registering himself just 5 points behind the winner Nyck de Vries. Sam Bird, after a lot of tussle with his ailing car, stood at the 8th position.
Here’s what James Barclay, Team Director Jaguar Racing commented: “Yesterday was a great day for Mitch. He just missed out on Super Pole but he was able to execute a world-class drive through the field to get on the podium for the fifth time this season. We had an issue with Sam’s car that forced him to retire and we’re working on that ahead of today. It is a great position to be leading the teams’ standings but we don’t underestimate the task to maintain the lead in the final race today. Formula E is unpredictable, incredibly competitive and we need to be prepared for every eventuality for the final race of the season. As a team, I’m so proud of the progress we’ve achieved so far this season and once again we have demonstrated our performance in Berlin yesterday. With one more race to go we will be giving it our all to finish strongly.”
Sam Bird shared his experience about the event saying: “I had a good start to the race, overtaking a number of cars and getting myself up to a potential points scoring position. The car was performing well, it felt strong and was good on energy management. It was a big disappointment to retire but we will investigate and look ahead of today and keep fighting.”
Mitch Evans shared his thoughts on the strategy applied and his determination for the future events saying: “It was a good race – we had strong pace throughout but it was a challenge to find the best time to attack. The strategy worked well and I’m glad it paid off as we needed to score big. We’re in a good place for today but we take nothing for granted. We need to focus for the reverse layout, look at the challenges of group one and do the best we can to maximise the points.”
