LONDON: Nick Cassidy capped off his final weekend with Jaguar TCS Racing in spectacular fashion, claiming victory in Round 16 at the London E-Prix.
The win marked his third in a row and Jaguar's fifth in six races, wrapping up an emotional send-off for both the New Zealander and team principal James Barclay.
Cassidy’s lights-to-flag triumph at a sold-out ExCeL London also secured him second place in the FIA Drivers’ World Championship.
Having scored just a single point in the opening six rounds of the season, his late surge underlined a remarkable turnaround.
“Honestly I love racing in this place,” said Cassidy.
“It’s not been that kind to me in the last few years, but this weekend it’s absolutely delivered. When this stadium is packed full of people it’s a pleasure to race here and it’s great for Formula E. Also, it’s my last race for the team, again I’ve had the best car today, and this one is 100 percent for them.
“When the tyres are working well, when the car’s perfect, everything becomes efficient. For sure it wasn’t easy at the start to keep the lead, but I think between Mitch (Evans) and myself we could manage that well. I’m gutted for him, to have had a one-two would have been perfect,” he added.
Cassidy finished 13.5 seconds clear of Mahindra Racing’s Nyck de Vries, the second-largest winning margin in Formula E history. Only Antonio Félix da Costa has previously won three consecutive races.
“It was certainly a very challenging race,” said de Vries.
“Obviously Nick didn’t want to get too down on energy versus everyone behind, so he was making sure he stayed on the same energy as us and that resulted in a little bit of a concertina effect behind us.
“I’m very pleased to bring home another podium and give P4 to our team, because they’ve done an incredible job. To consider that last year we qualified last on merit, and we’ve come back from such a long way – finishing fourth in the championship here this year is a great effort, so I’m very proud of everyone at Mahindra,” he added.
Envision Racing’s Sebastien Buemi completed the podium, charging through the field from 19th on the grid to third place, his second podium in three races after also finishing in the top three in Jakarta.
“In the end it was important to not get caught up in those incidents, I think I was lucky enough to make sure I was avoiding them well,” said Buemi.
“I saved quite a bit of energy at the beginning and that basically allowed me to take the ATTACK MODE properly. So in the end I’m very happy with that, it’s good for the Teams’ Championship, and it’s good when you have a bad qualifying like that to finish and score some good points.”
Jake Dennis of the Andretti Formula E Team crossed the line in fourth, while Jaguar’s Mitch Evans was classified fifth after receiving a five-second penalty for speeding under Full Course Yellow conditions — a punishment that dropped him from the second place he had claimed on track.
Newly-crowned drivers’ world champion Oliver Rowland failed to finish after a collision with Nico Mueller on Lap 16 forced both out of the race. Despite the DNF, Rowland received a hero’s reception from the London crowd, having sealed his championship title earlier in Berlin.
With Rowland’s early exit, Nissan’s slim hopes of overtaking Porsche in the Teams’ and Manufacturers’ standings came to an end. Porsche, who had quietly gathered momentum throughout the season, clinched both the FIA Teams’ World Championship and the inaugural FIA Manufacturers’ title — their first in Formula E.
Jaguar TCS Racing also overtook Nissan to secure second place in both championship standings, closing out a high point in their final race under Barclay’s leadership after 127 starts in the all-electric series.
Elsewhere, it was a disappointing end to the campaign for NEOM McLaren. Both drivers — Taylor Barnard and Sam Bird — failed to finish the final race after separate incidents. The team concluded the season sixth in the Teams’ standings, with Barnard finishing fourth overall on 112 points and Bird eighteenth with 31 points.
