Jaguar TCS Racing’s Nick Cassidy has admitted the team is likely to have performance issues with its Formula E challenger until the GEN4 era, which commences in two seasons’ time.
The Kiwi has seen Jaguar go from Teams’ Championship winners and Drivers’ Championship contenders – having lost out on the title at the final round last season – to struggling in this campaign.
Despite team-mate Mitch Evans winning the opening round in São Paulo, the ‘big cat’ has seen a significant downturn in performance, lagging behind rivals Tag Heuer Porsche and Nissan.
Cassidy picked-up his first points of the season last time out in Jeddah, using his significantly-honed peloton race skills to navigate his way to fifth place, narrowly missing-out on a podium finish.
Speaking to Motorsport Week at the Homestead-Miami Speedway before Saturday’s Miami E-Prix, Cassidy was frank about the likelihood that Jaguar isn’t in the best place to rediscover the form it has found over the last few seasons, and that it was unable to implement all of its desired improvements to the package in the eight-week gap FE wasn’t racing.
“We’re really pushing, but certainly only 50 percent of the wish list was completed; unfortunately it looks like we’re going to be locked in with a certain performance element for one-and-a-half years now, which isn’t ideal.”
When asked, despite the demoralising development, if he is approaching each race with a level of self-belief, Cassidy was philosophical.
“Yeah, that’s all I’ve got to do right? So just make the best of what I’ve got, try to improve as much as we can, but it’s going to be tough for sure.”
Cassidy keen to keep FE on the streets
As GEN4 draws nearer and nearer, with its debut in Season 13 slated to start at the end of next year, the projected car has been said to be at speeds similar to a current Formula 2 car.
This naturally renders a number of the current tracks on the calendar unable to host races from this time, which has caused worry amongst drivers and fans that the calendars thereon will include more permanent facilities, which goes against what many of the drivers refer to as the ‘DNA’ of the championship.
“Yeah I mean there’s a lot of elements to it right?” Cassidy conceded. “There’s cost, there’s the type of car, the type of races, commercial partners, manufacturers, so I think that there’s so much that goes into building street circuits and making them work on the calendar.
“It’s well out of my league to make that happen, but I’m just a race driver and I love driving on the streets.”
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