Jaguar's Mexico domination shows another way to skin a cat

Mitch Evans looked totally at ease on his way to a four-second victory in Mexico City. But this comprehensive triumph was not one founded upon some kind of magic bullet. What he and his Jaguar team did was inherently straightforward: they learned from their mistakes.

That notion is hardly a revelation, but it was an open goal missed by their rivals - their championship-winning rivals at that - and in turn it propelled Evans to the top of the standings.

Last time out in Santiago, again Evans was comfortable up front. The polesitter followed a pre-mediated strategy to use both of the higher-power attack mode boosts early on and he duly carved out a gap. But a software issue sapped his pace and left him prey at the halfway stage. He eventually fell to fourth - inheriting a fortunate podium after a penalty was handed to Nyck de Vries.

On his cooldown lap in the Chilean capital, Evans was tough over radio: "We've got some serious work to do, guys," he said. "That was an extremely poor performance".

Jaguar obliged, diagnosed the problem and found a fix.

"After Santiago we were all scratching our heads and had our tail between our legs but [the win in Mexico is] just a huge testament to the team," Evans said.

"They found all the issues we had in Santiago, which was quite a lot. It was nice to also show that we can resolve issues and show the pace that we do have."

Understeer through the fabulous Peraltada final corner at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez meant Evans missed out on back-to-back poles by only 0.063s to Andre Lotterer. The latter bagged Porsche's maiden FE front-row start in only the marque's fourth event, but Lotterer would lose first place within yards.

Excessive wheelspin off the line for the polesitter, attributed by the team as a driver error rather than a calibration issue, gave Evans the only chance he needed on the run to the first corner.

"In the race I think today we showed our true race pace, but we were still behind the DS" Mitch Evans

He drew alongside Lotterer, locked the brakes on the approach and then bashed his way through into the lead, pulling out a staggering 1.7s cushion by the end of the first lap. He was partially aided as Lotterer rejoined from running wide over the grass at Turn 1, which delayed the chasing pack, but the opening gambit from Evans was a clear statement of intent.

Nico Muller did present a potential threat of sorts. Overzealous picking his braking point in to Turn 1, the Dragon Racing driver missed the corner and instead smacked into the barrier to retire on the spot and bring out the safety car. Evans had his lead nullified but controlled the restart and begun building another sizeable gap.

At his most domineering, he was some 7.623s to the good. That eventually fell to 4.271s, but intentionally so after Sam Bird crashed out of second in the dying minutes on his way into the sold-out Foro Sol stadium. The round one winner was instructed by race director Scot Elkins to remain in his machine, which meant a late safety car might well have been called. Evans decided to back off and conserve his remaining energy should he face a challenge at the restart, but needn't have worried as green flag conditions remained.

In the most recent two rounds, the Kiwi has now scored a pole and a second in qualifying, a podium and a race win. That run of form establishes the 2019-20 Jaguar I-Type 4 as a genuine title-contending package. That machine has proven it can - at times - be a match for the Mercedes, BMW and DS Techeetah offerings.

"I think over one lap we're one of the benchmarks, for sure," Evans said.

"The last two events, I think, have proved that. Both tracks are very different so it was nice to be competitive over one lap. In the race I think today we showed our true race pace, but we were still behind the DS."

That said, if Jaguar is to mount a title charge it appears it'll be one side of the garage doing the legwork. An area where the team hasn't learned from its mistakes is the feverish chopping and changing of Evans's team-mate. In its four seasons in FE, Jaguar has called upon five drivers.

Current recruit James Calado has so far recorded two top-10 finishes in his four races but was disqualified in Mexico for exceeding energy limits. Adapting to FE is no mean feat, especially for a driver whose CV is heavily weighted towards GT endurance racing. Calado's bread and butter is in sharing a car and preserving it to the end of a stint - not the robust cut and thrust of FE battle.

Given how strong the car has looked this season, Jaguar will need Calado to acclimatise faster and climb the order to at least play rear-gunner for Evans and consolidate points.

By comparison, the new-look pairing of Antonio Felix da Costa and reigning champion Jean-Eric Vergne at DS Techeetah is much more evenly matched. But that's brought its own problems. Both have struggled in qualifying. Eighth-fastest Vergne blamed unease with the brakes, an issue that has carried over since Valencia testing, and da Costa cited unfamiliarity with his new wheels as the reason he qualified down in ninth. It's meant they have had to rely on the car's searing race pace to undo the damage, which in turn had led to them tripping over each other on track.

Twice the team instructed its drivers to swap position in Mexico. Vergne asked permission to pass da Costa, who had just activated his attack mode. That meant, once the positions were swapped, Vergne then held up the faster da Costa - the latter radioing to say "we've made a big mistake".

The bigger impact was that third-placed Sebastien Buemi ahead extended his lead over the DS Techeetahs by 1.7s during the switch around. Granted, when da Costa again overtook Vergne he needed all but a lap to latch on to the Nissan and then only a corner to pass. But if DS Techeetah fails to retain the teams' title by just a handful of points - in a season where its driver line-up has improved emphatically - it'll have to look back at cumbersome strategy calls as a critical factor in that defeat.

Given that the duo had previously tripped over each other in Santiago, which went some way to denying da Costa victory in the Chilean capital, this was DS Techeetah's mistake to learn from. But, unlike Jaguar, it looks like that hasn't been the case just yet.

"It was clear that the team waited too long for a solution and [da Costa] gained a lot more energy than me," Vergne said after finishing fourth, unable to overhaul Buemi.

"At least he scored some good points for the team but for me it was clearly not the best strategy."

It was a bad day to be powered by any one of the German automotive titans, with only Alexander Sims and Lucas di Grassi scoring points out of any of the BMW, Audi, Mercedes or Porsche factory drivers

Fortunately, da Costa did go on to bag the runner-up spot for the second time in a row. Finally running in clear air with more useable energy, he soon put pressure on Bird.

The Envision Virgin Racing pilot - who had impressively progressed through to superpole despite running in group one on a green track in qualifying - responded by driving off-line to activate attack mode. That in turn compromised his apex at the following corner and allowed da Costa to run side-by-side. Bird narrowly held on through the final corner but under the pressure he ran too deep in to Turn 3 and tagged the wall.

Bird - whose car uses a customer Audi powertrain - managed to rejoin, but another shunt in the stadium section was to be his final involvement and drops him down to sixth in the standings. In truth, it was a bad day to be powered by any one of the German automotive titans, with only Alexander Sims and Lucas di Grassi scoring points out of any of the BMW, Audi, Mercedes or Porsche factory drivers in fifth and sixth places respectively.

After the highs of his qualifying achievement, and soon losing out to Evans at Turn 1, experienced head Lotterer should have consolidated a top-five position. Instead, he found himself embroiled in contact as he tried to fight his way back into podium contention in a car that doesn't possess the ultimate race pace. He was forced into an early bath when the front-right wheel fairing, weakened after myriad collisions, dropped on to the tyre.

Instead of stopping off-line, Lotterer left a plume of smoke down the main straight as the rubber cried mercy and flames flickered from the front of the car. He made it back to the pits for repairs but was retired from the race. Team-mate Neel Jani fared little better. He was close to a full second off Lotterer's benchmark in qualifying and then finished last of the runners in 14th as Porsche's hopes fell apart.

It's Stoffel Vandoorne who departs from Mexico as the most disappointed Mercedes driver. In the week where he was revealed as the Formula 1 team's new reserve, he entered the race atop the points standings. Tenth in qualifying was underwhelming but he profited in the race to hold fifth, ahead of Sims.

With the BMW driver storming from a poor 18th on the grid - owing to a sudden loss of car balance between practice and qualifying - the top two in the points went toe-to-toe on track. That is, until Vandoorne binned it on the last of the 36 laps. He picked up damage on the front-right, ran wide on the exit of Turn 3 and whacked the wall. No score.

Team-mate de Vries failed to pick up the baton for the Silver Arrows also as he retired in the second of two bizarre Fanboost-related crashes over the weekend. The reigning F2 champion at least didn't require a helicopter ride to hospital, unlike Daniel Abt after his practice shunt. In both instances, when the drivers initiated a Fanboost run they suffered from the rear axle continuing to propel the car under braking. They didn't decelerate fully, leading to Abt's 20-g impact and de Vries wiping out Robin Frijns at Turn 1.

As concerning as both incidents were, Autosport understands they were isolated individual team software errors and not the result of a faulty component part.

Evans at no point needed the extra power of Fanboost on his way to the spoils - just as well considering he wasn't awarded it in the public vote.

But his win affirms his team's pace at the front. That might just manifest itself in a title battle between Jaguar and DS Techeetah, offering two contrasting ways to skin a big cat.

Will Jaguar get by putting everything behind Evans and banking on him to score the vast majority of its points, or is DS Techeetah better off by having two more evenly matched drivers, but ones who cost themselves results by falling over one another on track?