"Half the job done" - Attack mode error costs Mitch Evans the world championship, but Jaguar wins team & manufacturer titles

It was a dramatic Formula E finale at the London E-Prix - also for Mitch Evans, who had to surrender the drivers' title to Pascal Wehrlein in the final laps. A missed Attack Mode activation ultimately decided the world championship! This small mistake meant that Evans fell behind the German with less than three laps to go. Evans was dismayed after the race.

After the incident involving Nick Cassidy and Antonio Felix da Costa and the subsequent safety car phase, the title fight seemed decided. Mitch Evans and Pascal Wehrlein both still had two attack modes to activate and would take them one after the other. Oliver Rowland would slip through and secure the day's victory, but with second place Evans would be Formula E world champion.

But things were to turn out very differently: Evans missed the middle of the three loops during the second Attack Mode activation! A small driving mistake by the New Zealander that was to have major consequences. Because when he had to take the longer route through the attack zone again on the next lap, he inevitably lost position to Wehrlein.

Evans "surprised" by Jaguar strategy

Theoretically, he could have used his extra power to close the gap and attack Wehrlein. However, he then ran the risk of crossing the finish line in attack mode. This is not permitted and would have resulted in disqualification. He therefore had to let the leaders go and try to slow down as much as possible in order to be classified at all. He was lucky that Sebastien Buemi was driving behind him in the customer Jaguar and didn't cause him any problems...

"The fact that neither Nick nor I won the drivers' title leaves a bit of a taste," said Evans succinctly in the post-race press conference. Just like his team-mate Cassidy, he was not happy with some of the decisions the team had made around the attack mode strategy: "I was surprised at how some situations were called, because otherwise the result would have been very different."

"Half the job done"Jaguar wins team & manufacturers' championship

Nonetheless, Jaguar achieved great things in 2024: "We won the team championship, so at least half the job is done," concludes Evans. It was crucial for the title win that Evans took the points for third place and was not disqualified. With 14 podium results and a total of 368 points this season, the "big cat" has truly earned his first Formula E world championship title. In general, it is the first title for a Jaguar racing team since 1991.

ONE PODIUM WE WON'T FORGET ??

The class of 24' and the people power that made all of this possible ???#AllForOneWonForAll pic.twitter.com/ln5NJbNj4S

- Jaguar TCS Racing (@JaguarRacing) July 21, 2024

"This is Jaguar's first world title and I couldn't be prouder," says James Barclay. "I have mixed feelings, but what an incredible season for Jaguar TCS Racing, this is phenomenal. We've worked very hard for eight years and I'm very proud of our team."

While the race brought a lot of bad news for Jaguar, there was one piece of positive news after the race: Antonio Felix da Costa received a 5-second time penalty for the collision with Cassidy. As a result, he dropped out of the points, which is why Jaguar subsequently won the manufacturers' title together with customer team Envision. This means that the team still has two titles to celebrate on Sunday evening, even if the most prestigious one has not materialised.