Nick Cassidy secured an excellent podium finish at the season-opening Mexico City E-Prix, on his debut for Jaguar TCS Racing.
His first E-Prix for the factory Jaguar side following his move from Envision Racing couldn’t have gone any better, considering that race winner Pascal Wehrlein was just too strong. Cassidy looked good in Free Practice 2 in particular, but looked even better in qualifying.
He navigated his way safely out of the group stage and progressed all the way to the semi-finals, where he was beaten by Wehrlein. Cassidy would’ve started the race in third; however, he actually started in fourth following a one-place grid penalty.
Cassidy, teammate Mitch Evans and Stoffel Vandoorne all received a one-place grid penalty, for not following the red flag procedure during a stoppage in Free Practice 1. Nevertheless, Evans still started from the second row of the grid. He made a good start to the race and settled into fourth, although he was right on the back of Maximilian Günther.
The Kiwi finally got past Günther mid-race when the German activated his final Attack Mode, promoting him into third. Some wondered if the Season 9 Vice-Champion would then push on and challenge Wehrlein and Sébastian Buemi, something which failed to materialise.
Cassidy had to settle for third, yet this result is still six places better than he managed 12 months ago. He was very pleased to start his “nice new chapter” with a podium and is confident that despite a dominant victory, Wehrlein can be challenged.
“It’s the start of a really nice new chapter,” said Cassidy. “I had high expectations with FP1 and FP2, it’s not been an easy weekend, but the team have been really awesome with me throughout. Hopefully this is the start of something cool and that’s just getting started; it was a great race. I think the grid can definitely challenge Pascal moving forward.”
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