How Cassidy splashed to success at Shanghai E-Prix

A dominant masterclass in the rain helped Jaguar’s Nick Cassidy end his drought of Formula E success, comfortably converting pole position into his first victory in over a year on a rain-affected race day in Shanghai.

Sunday’s schedule was updated to reflect the inclement weather conditions at the Shanghai International Circuit, but the wet track surface didn’t seem to impact Cassidy who topped every session available.

Despite limited running in the third and final free practice session, in addition to a shortened qualifying format due to the weather, Cassidy continued his fantastic form into the race to reach the chequered flag with a seven-second lead over Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein.

This marks Cassidy’s first win of the 2024/25 Formula E season, and is a welcome return to the top spot for the New Zealander who has had a turbulent start to the Gen3 evo era with Jaguar. Despite the British manufacturer being the reigning teams’ champion, it has failed to replicate its success of previous years and was eighth in the current standings at the start of today.

Although the season started with a win for Jaguar, after a spectacular last-to-first victory for Cassidy’s compatriot team-mate Mitch Evans in Sao Paulo, it’s still been a tough challenge but things are on the up according to the Round 11 race winner.

“It’s a relief and I am speechless,” Cassidy stated after winning the second race of the Chinese double-header. “We’ve been waiting for this day. It has been tough, as you know. My guys were absolutely incredible, they absolutely nailed it and I had the best car on the grid today.

“I’m so proud of us in the dry this weekend as well, as we were top six every session apart from the race yesterday. We’re coming. We’ve got a good car. We’ve got a great group of people, it’s just been a tough year.”

In a week where silly season chatter has also suggested a switch of teams could be on the horizon for the Shanghai victor, it’s certainly a good reminder to the paddock of the quality Cassidy can bring on his day.

“I don’t get to answer that myself, right?” Cassidy joked when asked by Autosport about his contract plans for next season. “There’s always talk but it’s always speculation. I have just had an amazing time since I joined Jaguar last year, it was incredible.

“This year has been going through the tough parts of motorsport, but to grab the pole and win today shows the development curve that we’re on. There’s no secret, we’re a bit behind this car, but we are catching up.”

Qualifying for Round 11 was tweaked to accommodate the conditions on the circuit, eliminating the duels format and instead creating the grid based on the best times from the two group stages. It was Cassidy in the first group who achieved the better time in the wet, earning himself his first pole position of the season to line up alongside Antonio Felix da Costa’s Porsche on the front row after he topped his respective session.

After fears that the race could be cancelled, the rain eased up and 90 minutes after its rescheduled time a rolling race start got underway behind the safety car. Racing was given the green light after eight laps, with Cassidy leading da Costa from Wehrlein in third.

Both Porsches had used up 4% more energy than the race leader and those behind, and as soon as it was possible to do so all three took their first Attack Mode for some extra grip. The help of all-wheel drive and the 50kW meant more grip was available in the slippery conditions, and by lap 9 all of the top 11 had taken advantage of the activation.

Cassidy opted to use the shortest amount of Attack Mode available, only using two minutes of his eight to start. This was the same for da Costa, who had lost a position to Wehrlein – who chose a split four-minute strategy – on the ninth lap.

With a gradually drying track and a clear circuit ahead of him, Cassidy was able to pull away from the pack and by lap 27 of 31 the eventual race winner had a gap of over 10 seconds to the Porsches behind. His energy management was also notable, with 13% available to him on the final lap compared to 3% for Wehrlein in second.

As Wehrlein desperately conserved energy, Cassidy was able to comfortably cruise to the finish line to achieve his first win of the season and second podium finish after earning silverware for third in Monaco.

His haul of 28 points for the win and pole position on Sunday is almost equal to the number of points he’s achieved across the entire season – 33 before today. It’s also the second time Cassidy has led a Formula E race from start to finish, after managing the same in London in the 2022/23 season, which was also another wet race.

After losing out on a drivers’ championship in London last year, when he was taken out of contention in the final race by a mistake from da Costa, it’s been a long time coming to be back on that top step.

“There have been so many wins that probably should have been ours at the end of last season that never happened,” Cassidy added. “It feels like I’ve been waiting a long time. That’s certainly on your mind when you go through those last couple of laps, and now to kind of get that monkey off the back is awesome.

“My mum and dad are also here this weekend and it’s super nice to have them from New Zealand.”

Cassidy also had a change of race engineer for this weekend, reverting back to Phil Ingham, who held the role last season. This switch was the result of Geoff Lenfant, Cassidy’s regular engineer, being absent from Shanghai this weekend – though never far away.

“Unfortunately, Geoff had a few personal things he had to deal with this weekend, but he’s been following along,” Cassidy explained exclusively to Autosport. “My phone has been blowing up every two minutes with messages from him. He’s on inter-comms with the guys, and involved this weekend anyway. Honestly, I am so lucky to be working with two of the best.

“All this season, Phil’s been on the next seat anyway and this weekend Geoff’s been involved in engineering me from back home. Nothing’s really changed, just the radio. My car is still set up the same way. So although from the outside it looks very different, for us, it’s not too different.”

Despite the success of Ingham’s return to the role in Shanghai, it should be business as usual from the next round in Jakarta on 26 June.