In the paddock: Scott Mitchell

The sheer scale of the resources Jaguar enjoys means expectations are necessarily high ahead of its second Formula E season

“THE FIRST TWO RACES WERE SO DIFFICULT FOR US. We knew we were compromised with the powertrain, but nobody knew how bad it was. Were we not doing a good job?

“Marrakech especially was painful. Over Christmas I did feel the pressure because it wasn’t great, just where the results were and the return to the sport with Jaguar that wasn’t ideal.”

As Mitch Evans attests, the situation looked pretty bleak two races into Jaguar’s much-vaunted international racing comeback. A best qualifying result of 14th (1.3 seconds off the pace) and race result of 12th (44s off the winner), both of which came from Adam Carroll on Jaguar’s debut in Hong Kong, painted a poor picture by the end of 2016. In Marrakech the performance was even worse, compounded when Evans crashed out on the last lap.

Jaguar was learning on the go and knuckled down in the three-month gap between Marrakech and the next race in Buenos Aires to work out how it could improve. After no points from six attempts, Jaguar recorded six top-10 finishes from the next 18.

It still finished 10th and last in the championship, but Jaguar was coming in cold, hurt by minimal lead time (the team claims four months to design, prepare, test and homologate its first powertrain, the I-TYPE 1) and no prior knowledge of the series, while its rivals had two campaigns of understanding and experience on which to fall back.

There was a clear operational step over the course of last season, and that should carry on over the next few months as the team continues to learn under the new technical leadership of new signing Phil Charles, Nelson Piquet Jr’s ex-renault F1 race engineer. According to reserve driver Ho-pin Tung, he’s “already implemented several ideas for the new season” and “you’ll see quite a few more evolutions in the next few races”.

It made tangible progress as a racing operation as the season unfolded, and it’s had over a year to develop its I-TYPE 2. Jaguar always had scope to make a big technological step from season to season. Unlike F1, FE’S contracted technical platform means a fairer battleground. Take Piquet’s old team for example – Nextev jumped from the worst powertrain in 2015-16 to taking poles last season. The benefit of Jaguar’s immaturity means it can refine its package more as Renault, Audi, Mahindra, DS and the rest make incremental gains.

Progress should be swift. The race-team tie-up with Williams Advanced Engineering, coupled with Jaguar Land Rover’s own impressive technical infrastructure, means Jaguar has boasted a giant’s resources from the beginning. Its head of powertrain, Selin Tur, is considered a battery guru, having been key to the development of the original-spec Williams unit. There are no shortcomings on the technical side.

Jaguar has kept quiet on the details of the I-TYPE 2, but the expectation is a powertrain with a two-speed gearbox and revised packaging. The inverter will probably no longer be mounted on top of the battery and will instead be integrated behind it to contribute to a lower centre of gravity. Aluminium casing within will surely be replaced by carbonfibre to save the weight it was giving away last season (believed to be at least 30kg). Its drivers insist the difference this has made behind the wheel is already tangible.

Jaguar’s progress last season came in making sure it maximised what it had. That boiled down to set-up work, software improvements and strategic understanding. Any hardware upgrades would have to wait. Assuming they have come now, Jaguar should be well-placed. It has arguably done the hard bit in learning to become a competent race team (one or two FE squads are still lacking there…) and, while that becomes tougher as it moves towards the front, it has the ability to make the most of its package. But it still needs the right drivers and Piquet is a clear signal of intent from Jaguar. Although Evans excelled as a rookie and has a year’s experience with the team, it is FE’S inaugural champion who will be expected to lead its progression over the next year and beyond.

Piquet was extracted from his Nextev contract through a performance clause and represents a different level of driver to his predecessor Carroll, who just did not gel with FE, spent more of his season in 15th place on track than any other position, and was hammered by Evans in the points.

It’s extremely unlikely we’ll see Piquet suffer the same fate and that means it’s time to see what Jaguar is capable of. The package should be more potent, the team operation should be sharper, and the driver performances should be better.

Last place was not good enough last season. With all the talk about “learning”, there was reason to believe that short-term pain would lead to a bigger gain in the future.

Well, the future – or at least part of it – is here. It’s not quite ‘put up or shut up’ for Jaguar, but the graces afforded last season will not be handed out so generously this time.

“Jaguar’s progress last season came in ensuring it maximised what it had”