Triple win for Jaguar in Formula E leg in Brazil

Mitch Evans from the Jaguar TCS Racing Team has won the first Formula E race in Brazil. Two German drivers also scored points in São Paulo – including Porsche driver Pascal Wehrlein, who was able to defend his lead in the World Championship standings.

Second place at the São Paulo E-Prix went to Evans’ fellow New Zealander Nick Cassidy from Jaguar customer team Envision Racing. Evans’ teammate Sam Bird completed the podium in third. Only half a second separated the top three drivers at the finish.

The Jaguar team thus achieved the success it had long hoped for. Jaguar’s first Gen3 race car has been fast in all events so far this season and has proved to be one of the top cars. Due to their own mistakes and the sometimes difficult-to-predict race courses in Formula E, the top results for the factory team have so far failed to materialise – only the team Envision has already been able to score podium finishes consistently. It is quite unusual in Formula E for all three places on the podium to go to one manufacturer.

Behind the Jaguar trio, Porsche driver and South Africa winner Antonio Felix da Costa finished a few seconds behind, with the two DS-Penske cars of Jean-Eric Vergne and Stoffel Vandoorne coming in fifth and sixth. For world champion Vandoorne, who has not really got into the swing of things with the Gen3 race cars so far, this race result was a success on the one hand – on the other hand; he was able to take pole position in qualifying, so he lost five places in the course of the race.

Seventh was Pascal Wehrlein in the second Porsche – the German driver showed a strong recovery since he only started the race from 18th on the grid. René Rast in the McLaren-Nissan scored two championship points in ninth place. Maximilian Günther in the Maserati and André Lotterer in the Andretti team’s customer Porsche came away empty-handed in eleventh and twelfth places. The German Abt Cupra team also failed to score points, with drivers Nico Müller and Edoardo Mortata (both from Switzerland) retiring early.

There are always retirements in Formula E on the narrow street circuits, but the new track in the Brazilian metropolis attracted the displeasure of several drivers. This was due to a special track layout with several long straights and slow chicanes – on the one hand, this caused numerous rear-end collisions in the hard braking zones for the chicanes, but also shaped the course of the race at the front. Because of the unusually long straights, on which no energy can be recovered, caused a high energy consumption for the leader, which is why no driver wanted to drive at the front – until the end of the race, of course.

Driver criticism of the track layout in Brazil

The track prompted a rather unusual statement from world champion Vandoorne after the race: “I‘m obviously a bit disappointed with the end result of P6 having started from pole. We knew before coming here that leading the race is not actually a good thing around this circuit because it’s so energy sensitive, and the drivers following behind benefit so massively from the slipstream.” Race winner Mitch Evans managed to take advantage of that. “This has come at the perfect time,” said race winner Evans. “We had a tough start, but the car has been quick, so to finally get the victory and some points is incredible.”

The drivers’ standings continue to be led by Porsche driver Pascal Wehrlein with now 86 points. With the retirement of pursuer Jake Dennis in the Andretti Porsche (after a collision with Wehrlein, of all people), Wehrlein was even able to extend his lead by six points. After three podium finishes in a row, Nick Cassidy is only just behind Dennis in third place with 61 points. Porsche is now defending its lead in the team standings with 144 points.

Next up for Formula E is the double race in Berlin on 22 and 23 April. With the familiar track layout on Tempelhofer Feld, at least the sometimes chaotic strategy games and countless collisions should play a much smaller role than in Brazil.

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