With undoubtedly one of the strongest pairings in Formula E’s history, Team Principal James Barclay looks ahead to Season 10.
“It's been really positive,” Barclay began, when discussing how quick Cassidy and Evans had looked over the three day test. Evans set the fastest time of the Valencia running on the Tuesday morning, locking in a 1m24.474s, with Cassidy second overall with a 1m24.617s that he achieved on the Friday.
“I always say this for Valencia, though, there’s not too much to read into the times. But, it is positive to have some good pace and some good running so far. It's always nice to start the season.”
As we head into the second season of the exciting GEN3 era, there aren’t many significant overhauls to the cars compared to last year. With Evans driving the Jaguar I-TYPE 6 last season, and Cassidy coming over from Team Champions Envision Racing who ran the Jaguar powertrain, both drivers are relatively up to speed ahead of Season 10.
“There's no sort of acclimatising to the nuances of our car having raced the same hardware last year,” Barclay added about Cassidy joining the team. “Obviously, there's a lot of work between [Jaguar and Envision] as well. So from that point of view, we actually had quite a bit of contact with Nick last year. But, of course, sitting in our car and interacting with our engineers has been really nice to see unfold over the last couple of days.
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“He’s bedding in really, really well. The times are showing again, and it's great to have him in the team, getting those first miles under his belt and starting to gel well with the team.”
Despite the rapid pace and leaving the Spanish circuit with the two quickest times, the Jaguar team boss thinks it's important to remember what a competitive field Formula E truly is.
“I think in motorsport and in general, particularly for me, you can very quickly be foolish. You shouldn't take anything for granted. The quality of competition in Formula E is fantastic, but our base package with the Jaguar I-TYPE 6 compared to last year means we do start with a good baseline.
“It's the baseline everyone developed through the course of last year, and people have absolutely made use of the months since London. Quite frankly, yes, there's a bit of performance we can bring in from last year and the benefit of that is we know the baseline is good.
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“But now it's about continuing to build, not being complacent. The ingredients are there and that's the most important piece. The team showed good competency with the race format and the strategy that we saw unfolding with the race style we saw last year.
“In Mitch, we know we have a driver who's fought for the title for the last three years. Then with Nick driving it we can absolutely do the same. We're really excited. We have the right ingredients. We can't control the competition, and they will be very strong, but it’s about us executing every race, every session, really well.”
We can’t wait for Mexico City to see how these testing times translate to the track!