After challenging for the podium in the opening race of last weekend’s Diriyah E-Prix, Mitch Evans has revealed why he had zero pace in qualifying ahead of the second event.
Throughout the Diriyah double-header, Evans was without a doubt one of the fastest drivers. He progressed to the Final ahead of the first race of the weekend, where he was defeated by Jean-Éric Vergne. Evans then went onto finish fifth in last Friday’s race; however, he would’ve finished second or potentially even first if it wasn’t for two incidents with Vergne.
Despite finishing lower than expected, Evans was confident that he could challenge for the victory last Saturday at the Diriyah Street Circuit, especially after he topped Free Practice 3. To many people’s surprise, though, the Jaguar TCS Racing driver was eliminated in the group stage and started the second race from 13th on the grid.
With overtaking having been impossible due to minimal energy saving, Evans could only recover to P10. Nevertheless, he had strong pace in the race which he just wasn’t able to utilise. So, what went so wrong in qualifying?
Evans revealed at the end of the day that something mechanically “quite big” was put onto his car by mistake, with the error having not been discovered until it was too late.
“We had an issue,” Evans revealed to Motorsport Week. “We found out after qualify. I can’t really say. Something was put onto the car that shouldn’t have been. Mechanically, quite big, and that’s what resulted in the lack of pace in qualifying, which was frustrating.
“Car has been good over one-lap all weekend, so should have been further towards the front, but then with the lap less today in the race, it’s like virtually impossible to overtake. So, yeah, can’t really do much in the train. You can’t do your attacks.
“Probably fix these races because I don’t know how many genuine overtakes there were, but probably not many more yesterday than today.”
As mentioned by Evans, Saturday evening’s race was a lap shorter than Friday’s, something the drivers weren’t happy about. By shortening the race distance, less energy management was required, allowing the drivers to complete the majority of the race flat out. As a result, overtaking was “virtually impossible”.
The track itself also only has one genuine overtaking spot, yet Evans still thinks the issue is with the number of laps. Evans and several other drivers want to see laps added rather than taken away, as they feel this will increase the number of overtakes.
“Pretty more the latter. Pretty more the fact that we just have more energy,” said Evans, when asked if the lack of overtaking was down to the circuit or the number of laps. “If anything, I think they should be adding a lap, not decreasing or not losing laps. After Mexico, I think it’s pretty obvious that we need some more saving if we want more overtaking.
“The first race was okay in terms of balance, but still on the limit of being too much energy, I would say, or not enough saving. So the lap less today we knew the writing was on the wall for everyone, so not that surprising.”
Looking back on the first three rounds of Season 10, it’s been a tricky start for Evans. He has actually started the year better than he started 2023. However, there’s no doubting he should be on more than 21 points. Evans sits fifth in the standings whilst his new teammate, Nick Cassidy, leads the Drivers’ Championship on 57 points.
Cassidy claimed victory in Diriyah and is yet to finish below the top three, whereas Evans has finished fifth on two occasions and 10th. With just over six weeks until the next race in São Paulo, Evans has time to figure out what’s going wrong. He admits that he wishes he “was in a different position” but the 29-year-old is confident he can get a good result in Brazil.
“Yeah, look, I wish I was in a different position,” Evans admitted. “I’ve been one of the fastest cars, but doesn’t really reflect on the standings. Nick’s been doing a great job, but, yeah, just the momentum.
“My side is not quite as good when it comes to the race for different reasons, so, yeah, still really early, but, yeah, I wish the break was probably a bit shorter to get back into it, but, yeah, look, we’ve still got some good points on the board and we had a good result there last year, so I’m sure we can go again this year.”
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