Mitch Evans’s confusion and frustration at the way his Hyderabad E-Prix developed even before the intra-Jaguar elimination via team-mate Sam Bird almost encapsulated an angry and unsatisfying start to the 2023 season for the Kiwi.
The polesitter knew heading into the race that a good start, in a similar fashion to the last race in Riyadh, might bring the energy-saving tow effect that is so undesired for early-race leaders in Formula E this season.
Evans and Jaguar entered the Hyderabad weekend knowing that their collective game had to be upped. There were technical reasons he fell back in Diriyah but equally the strategy aspect of his side of the garage hasn’t felt as sharp as it has in previous campaigns.
“Strategy-wise since Mexico we’ve not been doing the best in terms of at our level,” Evans told The Race after his Hyderabad disaster.
“Historically I think we’ve been pretty good on strategy so obviously there was a lot of analysis after Saudi and even today as well.
“We knew the tow factor was big here, and I was running my race, I was up on my own strategy which was good but obviously the guys behind were benefiting from the tow, so I was expecting to maybe drop behind at some point.”
But what he wasn’t expecting was a drop of three positions. Slotting in behind Sacha Fenestraz’s Nissan after activating attack mode, Evans articulated his displeasure viscerally.
“What did we speak about before the race?” barked Evans on the radio to his engineer Josep Roca.
“Do you guys want to win this race or what?”
The temperature in the heat of battle here was at boiling point and despite getting back in front of Fenestraz, Evans was still unhappy.
“I think we still need to analyse it but I don’t think that was planned. Something’s, where that’s been calculated, is wrong. I was expecting to lose maybe a place or two, but not three.
“That was way too extreme and it shuffled me back unexpectedly and unnecessarily so I had more work to do to get back past Sacha and then back into where I was fighting, let’s say.”
What the early attack mode activation did was effectively give Jean-Eric Vergne and Sebastien Buemi up ahead a free one of their own – and they were able to get those done with the benefit of rejoining ahead of the Jaguar.
“After that I was very frustrated because I thought we’d just given up the track position and they’d made me do more work than I should have,” reckoned Evans.
It did get a bit more positive for Evans before the Turn 12 incident via his team-mate.
At that stage he was getting back on track and re-asserting himself from strategy and consumption target point of view.
“I was happily sitting there accumulating the energy, and the race was coming back towards us.
“It would have been quite fascinating to see towards the end of the race what would have happened.”
What was likely to have happened is that Evans would have reprised his Rome efforts of last year and won the race. That is why the devastation in and around the Jaguar garage after the race was pervasive in its intensity.
“I was back into a position to win the race, but obviously then Sam had a moment, I don’t know what you want to call it, but obviously he made a big mistake and took me out,” said Evans.
“I know he’s feeling bad, it clearly wasn’t intentional but it’s obviously never good when you’re taken out – especially when it’s the same, under the same umbrella.”
The disappointment was much more than just Bird’s mistake though. Evans knows that the early attack mode unsettled things unnecessarily and effectively put him in the line of fire from the chasing pack.
“I just feel like some things weren’t learned from Saudi and that’s why I got very frustrated,” he said.
“I don’t want to be like that but it’s just, you’re working hard out there and you need everything to go right and it just felt like they made the wrong call.
“I may be wrong, but at the time it felt wrong.
“I’ve already told the team and they have their reasons; they openly admit that they weren’t expecting me to lose that many places so there’s clearly something in the calculations that was wrong with how they calculate the distance between the cars.
“It’s just frustrating because I’m never able to get ahead at the start of this championship. I’ve been putting myself in good positions but I’m always in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
While last season Evans went from zero to hero in the points table with a Roman double, this season is proving a more difficult path to traverse.
Twelfth in the standings and 66 points off leader Pascal Wehrlein is not where anyone thought the Kiwi would be, especially in a car which has proved it is already good enough to win races this season.
“The car’s quick, the guys have done an amazing job performance-wise but I just feel a few times in the race recently we’re making our life a bit more difficult than it should be.
“I don’t want to criticise anyone but this is just me being honest.
“Me and the team are at a point, we’re family, so we can be open and honest to one another and no one takes it personally.
“They tell me when I’m doing a- where I can be better and vice versa. That’s how you get better.”
Keyword: ‘You guys want to win or what?’ – Evans anger beyond Bird crash