None of us found Season 6 of Formula E ending quite the way we wanted, other than perhaps Antonio Felix da Costa. For Mitch Evans, it was particularly bad. He arrived a title contender but ended up scrapping to salvage points over the course of the six Tempelhof races.
Jaguar suffered their worst season – in terms of points – since their maiden campaign in Formula E and although Evans scored 81% of their overall total, a truly disastrous run in Tempelhof saw things go wrong to a degree none of the team would have predicted during lockdown.
When Inside Electric spoke to the team during the season suspension, Evans and team principal James Barclay were fired up to contend the championship when it restarted.
Being in Group 1 of qualifying for the whole Tempelhof stint was a testament to Evans’ success prior to arriving in Berlin but ultimately it proved his undoing, He ended up well down the grid and scrabbling for points while da Costa ran away with the title.
Speaking before Jaguar’s Season 7 launch, Evans said the disappointment was hard to get over, to reset to a new season’s start. “I had a bit of time off, after Berlin. It took me a couple of weeks to get over Berlin because I was just so gutted,” he said,
The six races in nine days at Tempelhof were gruelling for everyone – Inside Electric’s small team burned ourselves out badly even remotely – and Evans said, from inside the bubble, it was hard to get over.
“I was exhausted, everyone was exhausted,” Evans explained. “I didn’t want to see a race track for a few weeks, but also emotionally, I was extremely disappointed with how it finished so I needed a couple of weeks to get over that, a little bit of time off.”
He said the double-header start of Season 7 and a new team-mate partnership offered an opportunity to reset and avoid the errors of Season 6, “Coming away from the first two races, you just want a bucketload of points. Obviously, between Sam and I, we’ll be aiming to win,” said Evans.
“Last year in Saudi I didn’t have a great start in the first race, I got points but then had a collision, actually with Sam in race two. So I don’t want a repeat of that especially, but specifically, I don’t want to be walking away without many points.
“I think a couple of podiums, between both cars, a bucketload of points to kickstart our season [is our aim] – things can shift quite quickly in Formula E.
“To get some runs on the board would be amazing so that would be the target, if we can’t win. Just being there, being in the fight, and accumulating some good points to run into Saudi and build on that.”
