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Tokyo Twist Leaves Jaguar TCS Racing Still In Fight
Tokyo served up one of those wonderfully cruel Formula E afternoons where the weather can not make its mind up and the strategy wall suddenly looks like a crime scene.
Jaguar TCS Racing arrived at Round 15 with plenty to like after qualifying, but the race turned into a lesson in how quickly a smart plan can become a very expensive guess. Heavy rain at the start gave the team a chance to attack in the wet, with both cars set up for grip rather than glory in the dry. For a while, that looked sensible.
António Félix da Costa jumped into the lead from second on the grid and built a gap of more than four seconds while the circuit was still soaking. Mitch Evans, meanwhile, climbed from seventh to the top five and looked nicely placed to cash in later. Then the rain eased, the track dried, and the whole thing went sideways.
With tyre pressures chosen for wet conditions, the Jaguar pair lost grip and energy efficiency as the surface improved. In Formula E, that is the sort of thing that turns a promising race into a grim exercise in damage limitation.
Da Costa eventually slipped out of the points after a late multi-car incident brought out a red flag. He picked up unavoidable contact, had to swap his front wing, and was dumped to the back for the one-lap restart. Not exactly the grand finale anyone had in mind. He ended up 16th.
Evans had a tougher ending still. A brush with the wall early on left the car carrying damage that later became a suspension problem, forcing him to retire on the final lap.
Even so, this was not a disaster, merely a bruising one. The championship picture still looks healthy enough. Evans remains second in the drivers’ standings, Da Costa sits sixth, and Jaguar TCS Racing still lead the teams’ table, with London and two final races left to settle the argument properly.
A Fast Car, A Wrong Forecast, And A Familiar Chase
The team’s verdict was simple enough: the car was quick, the forecast was wrong, and the drying track punished anyone who had bet on more rain than actually arrived. That is motorsport for you. One minute you are a genius, the next you are a footnote.
The good news is that Jaguar leaves Tokyo with the title fight intact and a car that clearly still has the pace to matter. London now becomes the final stage, and if history is any guide, nobody at Jaguar intends to turn up merely to make up the numbers.
Formula E now heads to the London E-Prix double-header in mid-August, where the season will be decided the hard way, which is to say by racing in the rain, on the limit, and with everyone pretending they are not doing the maths.
Zachary Skinner is the editor of TechDrivePlay.com, where tech, cars and adventure share the fast lane.
A former snowboarding pro and programmer, he brings both creative flair and technical know-how to his reviews. From high-performance cars to clever gadgets, he explores how innovation shapes the way we move, connect and live.
