How team orders turmoil risks overshadowing Cassidy’s Jaguar farewell win

Nick Cassidy was back to his winning ways in London, managing his third consecutive Formula E victory for Jaguar in his last race for the team. Having started the season finale from pole, after a penalty for fastest qualifier Cupra Kiro’s Dan Ticktum, Cassidy navigated a different style of race to his previous three wins this season.

His incredible comeback performances towards the end of the 2024-25 campaign were also enough to haul himself and Jaguar to second in the drivers’, teams’ and manufacturers’ world championships. It is a formidable end to his season, after failing to score any points in five of the first six races – and a good reminder how quickly things can change in Formula E.

In both his and team boss James Barclay’s last race with Jaguar, Cassidy powered ahead to finish 13.581 seconds clear of Mahindra’s Nyck de Vries to secure the second-largest winning margin in the championship’s 11-year history.

However, the race wasn’t all positive in the Jaguar camp, as Cassidy’s stablemate Mitch Evans demanded team orders be issued after receiving a 5s penalty for speeding under a full-course yellow and was furious when he finished second on track but fifth in the final classification.

The race day started with drama between Evans and Cassidy during qualifying, when they both progressed into the Duels together. They respectively beat the Mahindra duo of de Vries and Edoardo Mortara during their battles in the quarter finals, and faced each other in the semis for a spot in the final.

In a surprising twist, Pascal Wehrlein’s Porsche was knocked out early on and wasn’t in contention for the three points for pole, which led Jaguar to making a controversial but strategic decision. Things looked very close between the two on track, with a gap of just 0.016s as they reached the final section of the lap, until a mistake from Cassidy at Turn 16 should have sent Evans through.

But instead, in a last-minute order by the team, Evans lifted off the accelerator significantly around the final four corners to let Cassidy finish the lap quicker despite his error. In the end, Cassidy went into the final of the duels by half a second; as Evans was left noticeably frustrated at the call to prioritise his team-mate.

Cassidy was up against Ticktum in the final duel, with the Briton going on to achieve his first Formula E pole position and bagging the three points that come with it. Yet, he needed to serve a five-place grid penalty for contact with Evans on Saturday, and so Cassidy was there to inherit the P1 grid slot.

From there, he commanded the race and led every lap to snare victory but, behind him, a storm was brewing. Full-course yellows were deployed for a crash between the Nissan of Norman Nato and McLaren’s Taylor Barnard on lap 10, with the latter retiring from the team’s final Formula E race as a result. But, during this brief stoppage in the racing, Evans was found to have been speeding under the restricted conditions and was hit with a 5s penalty.

“There was not a single message to me, which was a bit disappointing. It was pretty obvious through the race that I was doing my best to keep him in second, but I was not given any information” Nick Cassidy

By lap 25 of 38, Evans was on the tail of Cassidy in second but was given the instruction that they would “hold position” despite there being an opportunity to pass and stay within five seconds of Cassidy – potentially gifting the team a 1-2.

Four laps later, and with both Jaguar drivers in their final Attack Mode activation, Evans made a desperate radio call to the team: “If I follow the lights, I am over consuming. So I will repeat it one more time. I may need his help with the penalty, and I need his tow. I helped him today, and I am not going to get any angrier but my message is clear.”

He was told that Cassidy was going for the fastest lap and would then drop back to help, but he did also have an additional two minutes of Attack Mode to Evans and was four seconds up the road.

The calls from Evans to swap positions with Cassidy were ignored

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images

With three laps to go – including an additional two laps added for the earlier caution – Evans was back on the radio. “I am struggling man, and this is not cool,” he stated, while his engineer Alan Cocks told him the team understood and was trying to make something happen. Meanwhile, Cassidy ahead was pulling an even bigger gap and eventually finished over 13s up the road.

Although second on track, Evans fell back to fifth with his penalty as de Vries banked back-to-back second-place finishes, with Sebastien Buemi doing an outstanding job to rise up the pack and finish third from 19th on the grid.

“Today was probably my most dominant or biggest win in Formula E that I’ve had,” Cassidy said. “My car really was super, and I was able to control it quite well, so it’s sort of the most relaxed I’ve been in a racing car in a long time. I felt very good with it and the race went perfectly.

“I must say, I was surprised to have that situation in qualifying. It wasn’t spoken about before qualifying. It was only when Pascal was knocked out of the duels that we looked at the first duel time and thought that pole could be possible for me. Between Mitch and the team, they supported me.

“I actually felt really disappointed that the last two duel laps were probably the worst duel laps I’ve done in this building. I had a lot of confidence and I just didn’t drive well enough. So I felt bad for the team, considering they put me forward to try to get those three points, but tried to do my best to make it up for them in the race, and Mitch and I finished 1-2 on track.

“I was always trying to support him and keep him second behind me, but unfortunately it didn’t quite work out for him.”

While Evans fell back, Cassidy stormed clear to a dominant win

Photo by: Andreas Beil

When asked specifically about Evans’ penalty, Cassidy was quick to clarify: “He was definitely allowed to go past me. That was clear, but it’s a bit hard to go past me when I’m 13 seconds up the road.

“There was not a single message to me, which was a bit disappointing. I, of course, would do anything. It was pretty obvious through the race that I was doing my best to keep him in second, but I was not given any information.”

After sitting towards the back of the standings, and being 18th before his Monaco podium in round seven, Cassidy now finishes the season second in the drivers’ standings on 153 points – 31 adrift of champion Oliver Rowland, who dominated proceedings at the start of the season. It’s an incredible effort from both Cassidy and Jaguar in these final few rounds, as the team won five of the last six races.

However, London marked the end of an era for the manufacturer in Formula E, and with the departure of Cassidy and team principal Barclay it will be intriguing to see what the future holds. With talks of Antonio Felix da Costa joining Evans next season, and Ian James expected to be announced as the new team boss after McLaren’s exit, there’s no denying it’ll be a big change in the final season of the Gen3 Evo era.

There was a slight cloud over Cassidy and Barclay’s Jaguar farewell victory amid team order decisions

Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images