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Although there have been three different winners over the first three rounds, only one driver has been on every podium and has one of those victories. Nick Cassidy joined Jaguar TCS Racing for Season 10 alongside teammate Mitch Evans, and has had a dream start to this new chapter.
Third place in Mexico, third place during Friday in Diriyah and the win on Saturday sees Cassidy lead the World Championship standings by 19 points to TAG Heuer Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein. Speaking to the media after his win in Diriyah, Cassidy explains his fantastic start to the season and his expectations for what’s still to come.
Jaguar have had the three podiums so far, with Evans also collecting points over every race weekend to place the team top of the standings.
“I think it's just a bit of a coincidence that we've had a good three races,” Cassidy began, “but it's not actually that many races when you look at the championship. I mean, still 13 races to go and you need a good run of 10 races or so to make a good campaign.
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“I think it's really under-spoken how strong the Nissan and the DS PENSKE cars are. For me, Oliver Roland’s (Nissan) pace, Sacha Fenestraz (Nissan) as well, he topped the group I think, both in the same cars. Jake Hughes and Sam Bird (NEOM McLaren) are super strong, we have seen Maximilian Guenther (Maserati MSG Racing) dominate in Jakarta and in Mexico he was very strong.
“It means that that's essentially eight cars and together with Jaguar and Porsche, that's 16 cars where it's going to be difficult to finish in the top 10 some weekends! That's kind of what's crazy about Formula E right now is how close and competitive it is. So I'm just a little bit still surprised that we only read about Jaguar and Porsche in the media.”
When asked if he thought it was going to be a 16-car fight on track, Cassidy replied: “I really believe so.”
Round 3 in Diriyah provided a very mixed up grid for qualifying, partially down to Envision Racing’s Sebastien Buemi bringing out the red flags. However, other drivers like Andretti’s Jake Dennis suggested he didn’t have the pace to make it through to the qualifying Duels anyway despite winning the event only the day before.
“Even Dennis, in a way, demonstrated that in Riyadh when he was so dominant in Round 2, finishing 13 seconds ahead is an unbelievable performance. I think I heard him quote ‘the worst car ever’ the next morning! I feel bad for singling him out, but I'm just meaning like he's the current World Champion. He could win one day, and be 15th on the grid the next day, which I think just shows how incredibly tight it is right now.
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"So certainly going to have a lot of names winning this year, I think I think that's great for the sport, makes our job tougher, but ultimately, that's what we want, right?
“I'm expecting some days where I qualify 18th or 16th or something because it's just going to be hard to be that good in every situation,” Cassidy added. “Those days are going to come, we're just going to try to limit them and optimise whatever we can because the field is so close right now.”
Cassidy made the leap from reigning Teams' Champions Envision, who are powered by Jaguar, to the main manufacturer themselves for the 2023/24 season. Yet, despite the run of brilliant results, the 29-year-old Kiwi wasn’t expecting to hit the ground running with the success that he has had.
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“I'm feeling good,” the six-time race winner said before the São Paulo E-Prix. “Mexico, I am still surprised that we secured a podium there. I wasn't comfortable. I was actually kind of shocked how uncomfortable I was in Mexico. We made huge steps in Riyadh, so it felt back to normal for me and more in line with my feelings from the end of last season. I think just to have the results, and the board has kind of made everyone on the team pretty relaxed.
“I think it's no secret, I really love the technical side of motorsport; whether that's mechanical development or software development. And so being here at Jaguar gives me a really good opportunity to be involved in that, which I'm really enjoying.”