How Evans kept cool in Jakarta heat to renew his Formula E title push

Two big cats fought valiantly over the spoils on offer at Formula E’s first race in Jakarta. One cat, the DS Techeetah squad, had arguably roared the loudest earlier in the day, snarling its way to the head of the timing charts in both practice and qualifying with apparent ease.

But the elusive prey it spent the day – or arguably the whole opening half of the season – stalking through the repaved streets around the Ancol Beach mall was intercepted by the original Big Cat. Jaguar – or most pertinently Mitch Evans – snatched the lead of the race with a single swipe, pouncing on polesitter Jean-Eric Vergne when the two-time champion was at his most vulnerable.

In Berlin last month, Evans had been unable to hit the heights of his Rome double victory and second place in Monaco. The Tempelhof Airport has never been a happy hunting ground for Jaguar, and Evans did well to leave Berlin with points from both races, keeping himself in championship contention at an event where the Mercedes-powered cars ran riot.

As an all-new venue with very few ‘traditional’ Formula E circuit hallmarks, Jakarta was a considerably unknown quantity. A newly laid asphalt offered a level of grip far beyond the usual road surfaces, and the considerable heat and humidity was expected to play havoc with battery temperatures – and thus put a premium on efficiency. Unlike the usual ebb and flow of the 2021-22 season in which circuits have tended to suit one manufacturer, Jakarta was going to be something of a wildcard for everyone.

If practice was to be believed – at least until the final minute of FP2 – then there was a very real chance that Jakarta was going to be a jamboree for the less fancied teams on the grid. Mahindra’s Oliver Rowland headed FP1, NIO 333 bagged the sixth and seventh places in FP2, and Dragon Penske’s Antonio Giovinazzi even bumped his way into the top 10 by the close of the second session.

But the DS Techeetah squad got its teeth into the session at the last second as if the half-hour running was a succulent impala. Antonio Felix da Costa took the chequered flag with the weekend’s first lap in the 1m07s bracket, and Vergne then set the last moments later – eclipsing his team-mate by a whopping four tenths for a 1m07.594s. No other laps throughout the weekend got close, helped in part by the track surface and temperature torturing the all-weather Michelin rubber.

Evans held off Vergne and Mortara to win in a tense finish to the race as all the leading contenders tried to conserve energy

Photo by: Xaveria Yunita

Although FP2’s spread of results hinted at the smaller teams having half a chance to strike gold, qualifying was largely dominated by the usual faces – save for Andre Lotterer, whose impressive streak of making it into the duels in each of the first eight races came to a startling halt after missing 0.003s to Sebastien Buemi, who crept into his and Nissan e.dams’ first duels appearance.

Apart from Buemi’s cameo, it was business as usual; Stoffel Vandoorne headed Group A by just under 0.07s over Vergne, while da Costa shaded Edoardo Mortara by an even more scant 0.001s. Evans, for his part, was just three hundredths ahead of the fifth-placed Nyck de Vries and scraped his way into the duels – booking a quarter-final bout with Vandoorne.

But Evans capitalised on Vandoorne’s poor first sector, in which the Belgian shipped four tenths of a second to the Kiwi driver. As Vergne dispatched Pascal Wehrlein, who was already lumbered with a five-place grid penalty as Porsche broke the seal on the DCDC converter unit that failed in Monaco while the German was leading, he was up against Evans with a place in the final up for grabs.

Before the weekend, drivers spoke at length about the importance of managing battery temperatures throughout the race, in anticipation of the sweltering conditions. As a battery gets hotter, it discharges more readily – meaning that the overall efficiency of a Formula E car will drop

DS Techeetah’s teeth in qualifying were sharper, and the Frenchman brushed Evans aside to ensure the Franco-Chinese squad had at least one cat in the race for pole. Da Costa then ensured it was an all-DS duel after easing past Buemi and Mortara, the latter having cleared Jake Dennis in the quarters.

Vergne then controlled the final duel, as da Costa was increasingly ragged throughout the lap and was beaten by a full 0.8s by his team-mate. It was Vergne’s 15th Formula E pole, setting a new record having been tied with Buemi on 14 prior to the weekend. And, as a win has proven to be elusive in 2021-22 despite great pace among the Techeetah camp, it was Vergne’s best chance to capitalise.

Before the weekend, drivers spoke at length about the importance of managing battery temperatures throughout the race, in anticipation of the sweltering conditions. As a battery gets hotter, it discharges more readily – meaning that the overall efficiency of a Formula E car will drop.

With plenty of history lessons to draw on, particularly from FE’s past races in Santiago, where drivers were forced into a crawl simply to reach the end, the teams focused their efforts on ensuring that eventuality didn’t occur. Helpfully, the mercury was no longer pushing 33C as it had under the midday sun.

Poleman Vergne's advantage wasn't threatened at the start as he led da Costa

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Off the line, Vergne’s lead never looked in doubt and he was under little pressure on the long run to Turn 1, but da Costa quickly had to contend with a rapid start from Evans. The Jaguar driver sniffed an opportunity around the outside of the 2019-20 champion, but da Costa placed his car to the left enough to ward off an early challenge. With the order now shaken out after the start, the drivers entered their management phase, albeit helped by a lap-two safety car as Rowland’s left-front wheel made a bid for freedom and detached itself from the Yorkshireman’s Mahindra.

Upon the restart two laps later, Evans stuck with the leading pack of DS Techeetahs, and was immediately rewarded with second as the two black-and-gold cars locked up into Turn 7 – drifting wide. Da Costa was particularly deep into the corner and Evans breezed past, albeit with a parting kiss on the rear from the Portuguese driver’s front fender.

Soon after, the initial collections of attack mode began, with Vergne briefly conceding the lead to Evans as he picked up his four-minute allocation of 250kW power on lap eight of 40. Evans followed suit a lap later, albeit losing a place to both Vergne and Mortara as the Venturi driver followed his Berlin strategy and went later with his initial activation. The Swiss held out until lap 15 to pick up his own higher power mode, allowing Evans back into second and within striking distance of Vergne once more.

Vergne dived off-line at Turn 16 on the 16th lap for attack mode number two, releasing Evans into the front once more, but this time had to charge past organically two laps later at Turn 1 to reclaim the reins. The Aucklander had a brief chance of securing a cutback by navigating the tighter line into the next corner, but Vergne simply had more traction and held him off.

Evans picked up his second attack mode on lap 25, crucially holding off da Costa – who had moved up to third once more as Mortara went for his second activation a lap previous. At this point, Vergne had a two-second lead and his attack mode had long since expired, giving Evans the impetus to scythe away at the gap. Four minutes later, once Evans had used up his extra 30kW of power, the gap between the front two stood at a mere 0.6s. Vergne was keeping calm out in front, but received an order from the DS pitwall to switch modes to try and manage his battery temperatures.

“They asked me to go to a certain mode, and this mode was making me lift way, way earlier with less regen,” Vergne explained to Autosport after the race. Even so, as he’d begun lap 32, Evans didn’t seem to be particularly close to Vergne as the two headed towards Turn 7, but Vergne’s early lift gave the New Zealander acres of room down the inside. The Jaguar leaped into action, charging past Vergne and giving Evans the lead seemingly out of nowhere.

From there, he hoped for a repeat of Rome, where he’d charged off into the distance with nobody able to challenge. But Jakarta had one more sting in the tail. Evans’s rear tyres had begun to dwindle in performance and the near-one-second advantage he’d picked up could not last.

An error from da Costa allowed Evans to snatch second place and mount his successful challenge for the win against Vergne

Photo by: Andreas Beil

By then, Mortara had cleared da Costa for the final time with his own attack mode and had joined the lead battle, closing down Jakarta’s maiden Formula E race with a frenetic finale. Vergne was now hunting down Evans, with Berlin winner Mortara on hand to pick up the pieces. With two laps remaining, Evans was under a huge amount of pressure from Vergne and forced to take defensive lines into the corners as the Parisian attempted to gather every single inch of space to find a way through.

But Evans had one more ace up his sleeve, with about 0.5% more useable energy in the final stages. It proved enough of a shield to absorb each blow Vergne was on hand to deal, and by the final lap Vergne was simply focusing on regenerating enough energy to make it to the end. Evans was off the hook, and came away from a breathless final encounter with his third victory of the year.

"Berlin was a bit of a struggle for us. But we’ve come with a completely different approach, and Jaguar have given me the tools to qualify at the front and race there" Mitch Evans

Mortara, on a similar level of energy to Evans, threw the kitchen sink at trying to snatch second from Vergne at the death – but was unable to prise open a gap and had to be content with third.

“With a few laps to go, my rear tyres just plummeted,” a sweaty Evans said after the race. “He [Vergne] recovered a bit and then Edo was putting pressure on him. So they came towards me. Fortunately, the energy was quite similar between all of us, so that’s a massive advantage on the last lap. But it was a hard race, even physically it was not easy towards the end.

“Berlin was a bit of a struggle for us. But we’ve come with a completely different approach, and Jaguar have given me the tools to qualify at the front and race there.”

With seven races remaining, Formula E’s titanic title scrap shows no signs of abating. In terms of spectacle, Jakarta was a qualified success for the championship and yielded a scintillating finish – packed out with thousands of fans. But among the blistering heat and high-pressure stakes, Evans was simply the man on the day who could keep his cool. With Marrakech next up to kick off an increasingly busy July, it might require that ice-cold touch once more.

Victory for Evans puts him just 12 points off championship leader Vandoorne once more

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images