Jaguar “definitely got some work to do” for Mexico City E-Prix

Formula E championship leader Mitch Evans claims that his Jaguar team has “definitely got some work to do” as he believes the package still lacks the pure performance of rivals Porsche and Nissan.

Evans took victory in the season-opening Sao Paulo E-Prix from last on the grid having benefitted from several incidents and two red flags to move up the order last month.

But despite the winning start to the season the Kiwi believes the Jaguar package is far from the strongest on the grid ahead of Saturday’s Mexico City E-Prix.

“It does seem like we’re lacking a bit, especially one lap efficiency, I think Porsche and Nissan have got the edge on us as well if you look at all the analytics, but one lap pace I would say is our weakness,” Evans told Autosport.

“We just hope we can obviously catch up on that deficit, but it does seem like we’re lacking a little bit.

“I think Nissan especially have made a really good job in terms of efficiency but also just their overall package.

“Our car is still very immature like everyone’s, but I feel like we’ve got improvements that we can make, but I think everyone else can as well. So at the moment it’s hard to judge, but we’ve definitely got some work to do.”

Porsche’s Antonio Felix da Costa topped Friday’s opening FP1 session as Evans was left in fifth, just over three tenths behind, as team-mate Nick Cassidy finished half a second further back in 15th.

Cassidy failed to finish the Sao Paulo race after a collision with reigning champion Pascal Wehrlein, which left the Porsche driver in hospital after flipping his car into the wall.

Cassidy stated that the British manufacturer intends to bring an upgrade package after the Jeddah double-header in February that will help with its performance.

“I think we’re a little bit behind where we want to be with this car,” said Cassidy.

“We’ve got some really cool, exciting things in the pipeline where I think we’ve got to wait until the break after Jeddah to see how that kind of comes on.

“I’m probably more hopeful for the second half of the season than I am right now but it’s all okay. I think the team’s working really well, working really hard and we’ll see what happens this weekend.”