Why Jaguar has nowhere to hide

"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 a great situation, 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 (43s 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 made genuine, tangible progress as a racing operation as the season unfolded

Externally at least, around this time last year the message was clear: the coming months will be a learning season, and any expectation of immediate success is unrealistic. Whether Jaguar was really prepared internally to deal with how things started on-track is another matter.

To give credit where it is due, things picked up significantly thereafter. 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. The result was a surprising seventh in qualifying for Evans, although he faded in the race. But it was the start of something better.

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 could very easily have finished seventh had a couple of results fallen differently. And it recorded the highest total for a team ranked last over FE's three seasons.

That last point might sound like a bit of straw-clutching. But it's a valid marker because Jaguar was coming in cold - it had minimal lead-up 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 seasons of understanding and experience on which to fall back.

So, Jaguar compared reasonably well with the 'worst' teams from before. More encouragingly it made genuine, tangible progress as a racing operation as the season unfolded. And it's had over a year to develop its I-type 2 in tandem with everything else. That's a tricky task to manage, but one its rivals have been contending with just fine.

There are four areas of progression for Jaguar for 2017/18. It has completed its learning season and has the benefit of a year's experience. The engineering team has been restructured with some Formula 1-level additions. Investment is forthcoming. And it has signed Nelson Piquet Jr to replace Carroll, meaning we'll know for certain what the package is capable of and get a proper benchmark for the excellent Evans.

Reserve driver Ho-Pin Tung spent his time at races last season in the garage, offering "an extra pair of driver's eyes in the garage". He reckons there was a clear operational step over the course of last season and expects that to carry on over the next few months as the team continues to learn under the new technical leadership of Piquet's ex-Renault F1 race engineer Phil Charles.

"The unique character of Formula E, having everything compressed in one day, means there's very little time to analyse things," Tung explains. "To have just a bit of extra info could always be helpful.

"During the season we've evolved simple things such as the layout of the garage - we've changed it a few times, to make it more suitable to the operation that are necessary in FE. With Phil coming on board that's going to take another step and he's already implemented several ideas for the new season.

"You'll see quite a few more evolutions in the next few races."

Evolution you won't be able to see, at least physically, is under the bodywork. 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. Initial progress should be swift.

"Other teams are reaching their peak point now," says team director James Barclay. "We have an all-new powertrain and it will be a big step forward for us."

Jaguar is keeping quiet on the details of the I-type 2 but the expectation is a powertrain with a two-speed gearbox and revised packaging. Barclay talks of "no stone being left unturned" and if that's the case, then 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).

"You can tell," Evans insists. "It's hard to compare like for like, I didn't do any testing pre-season last year. The car feels more nimble than before - we've stripped all that weight out, it's a huge thing. That adds up in the race with efficiency and tyre life. And we've increased the efficiency of the car the way it's packaged."

Tung, who drove last season's development car and has done the bulk of the driving in the I-type 2 alongside Evans, reaffirms that "lots of work" has gone into the packaging, adding: "One big improvement is the driveability. We realised relatively early in season three that we needed a very big overhaul of the powertrain, so lots of energy has gone into that."

Predictions are a mug's game, especially when the official pre-season test hasn't even taken place. Evans is itching to get to Valencia next week, but acknowledges that "you don't know until Hong Kong".

"Some teams are bringing a whole new powertrain, some are evolving what they had," he says. "We're already lacking from them and they are going to make improvements - we need to make almost a double gain or jump to be on par with them.

"We're not underestimating; realistically we want to be consistently in the points. Instead of just getting the points and that feeling like a good result and a win."

One element that was particularly impressive last season was Jaguar's ability to become a point-scoring team. Because FE powertrains are homologated pre-season, there's limited scope for development.

Jaguar's progress came in understanding the limitations of its package and making sure it maximised what it had. That boiled down to set-up work, software improvements and strategic understanding. Any hardware improvements would have to wait.

Assuming those developments have come, then, Jaguar should be well-placed. It has arguably done the hard bit in learning to become a competent race team (one or two FE outfits are still lacking there...) and while that becomes tougher as it moves towards the front, it should have the ability to make the most of its improved technical package. Particularly with its race team rejig.

In addition to Charles joining to oversee the engineering operation in conjunction with Jaguar's lead vehicle engineer John Russell, Paul Davison has been drafted in as Piquet's performance engineer. Davison was Piquet's race engineer in GP2 and went on to conduct the same role for Jules Bianchi at Marussia in F1, before moving on to Williams, where he was performance engineer for Felipe Massa and, for the start of this season, Lance Stroll.

"The teams can concur and find something that works on one car and apply it to the other - Phil's role is about coordinating that group," says Barclay. "With his experience, ratifying the direction of the decisions will be important. He'll be giving them the support they need. Phil's recent experience around race strategy will be a big part.

"Phil was someone we were very keen to bring on board. [His and Piquet's prior relationship at Renault] is a positive. Having that good dynamic and that relationship is crucial. And Phil has that experience of getting on top of control tyres.

"From a performance engineering point of view, it's understanding the latest tools and approaches to the sport, [so] Paul is really helpful to all the engineering team. All the areas we could identify as an area for improvement are what we've been doing for next season."

"The car feels more nimble than before - we've stripped all that weight out, it's a huge thing" Mitch Evans

It also means an air of familiarity for Piquet that should accelerate the bedding-in process at his new team after three seasons with the same FE entry (albeit in different guises as Team China Racing and NextEV).

"That's a very positive thing for me," he says. "I'm in an environment where we have a very good chance of moving forward because of all the people we have together with us, it's people I trust, that I know are going to be doing their best, people I have known over 10 years."

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 FE driver to his predecessor Carroll. Barclay said it was "unfortunate" Carroll didn't work out, but the man who took Ireland to an A1 Grand Prix title just did not gel with FE - he spent more of his season in 15th place on track than any other position, and was hammered by Evans in the points.

Barclay insists Jaguar gave Carroll up to the last race to prove himself, but admits "at the same time you have to be realistic as well". Alex Lynn was tested before DS Virgin activated an option in his contract and snapped him up as a full-time driver. And then Piquet's 11th place in the championship as NextEV finished sixth opened the door for Jaguar's marquee signing.

"We wanted a proven winner," says Barclay. "Reducing the unknowns is crucial for us at this point - we do still have catching up to do.

"Mitch was delivering every weekend. We saw the data and Adam had those moments where it all came together, but unfortunately sometimes it doesn't all work out that way.

"He's been phenomenally professional and his work ethic was unbelievable, so nothing but admiration from our side. But it's important we have two drivers delivering points.

"We have to make all those steps to ensure we get the best results possible and that's ultimately why we had to make the driver change."

Evans talks of Piquet being "great" for himself as a benchmark but for the team as well, acknowledging his own limitations as a rookie last season in driving development.

"As a brand-new team for us last season with two rookies it wasn't easy to keep evolving," he admits. "We did manage to do that, but with a driver who has plenty of experience, hopefully that rate of development will be even faster.

"At the moment it's only been a few weeks but it's already a positive feeling within the team."

Jaguar's new signings are a fresh indicator of the scale of investment it is committing to in FE, where it already dominates in marketing and has also launched the series' first support category for its 2018-incoming I-PACE.

The race team's tie-up with Williams Advanced Engineering, coupled with Jaguar Land Rover's own impressive technical infrastructure, meant Jaguar has boasted a behemoth'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.

This season we'll see the first real fruits of everything Jaguar offers, but it's also important for the longer-term. Money isn't everything - resources come in different forms. Jaguar has both. As well as having fewer mitigating circumstances than ever this season, Jaguar has nowhere to hide in the longer-term.

"It's fun to work in the team like this, the capacity of changing things quickly and developing - having everything done in-house," says Piquet. "You could even say NextEV is investing a bit more money, but they will have to.

"They are going to have the gearbox done in one place, the inverter done somewhere else, everything is outside and you have to bring it all in. It not only costs more, it takes more time and it is more difficult to make everything fit perfectly together.

"I believed there is a much bigger chance for this team [Jaguar] to succeed. There's no chance for small teams in Formula E to compete against that unless they start hiring dozens of people a month and make the programme grow."

It's time to see what Jaguar is capable of. The technical package should be more potent, the team operation should be sharpe, and the driver performances should be better.

By the high standards of the name the team bears, last place was not good enough. But with all the talk about "learning", there was reason to believe short-term pain would lead to a bigger gain in the future. Piquet knows that's critical with the likes of Porsche and Mercedes coming in from 2019, but the future, or at least the first part of it, is already 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 around.