The divorce that ended a once perfect motorsport marriage

After just one and half seasons, the relationship between Nelson Piquet Jr and the Jaguar ABB FIA Formula E team is over.

It all seemed so promising ahead of the 2017/18 season when Piquet had made a high-profile move to Jaguar, which was coming off its disastrous first campaign in the electric championship.

Piquet was looking for his own fresh start after his 2014/15 title-winning season was followed by difficult times with the NEXTEV squad that had taken him to that championship. On paper - the only anniversary they ended up sharing - the marriage between Piquet and Jaguar looked to be perfect.

Indeed, when Piquet was slotted in alongside Mitch Evans in the Jaguar line-up, the new partnership did start very well.

Piquet finished fourth in the 2017/18 season opener in Hong Kong, which was at the time Jaguar's joint-best result in FE. He did not get to share this distinction for long, though, as Evans ended up with third place in the second race of that event the very next day, although he needed Daniel Abt to be disqualified to move up to that spot.

But overall the first half of FE's fourth season was quite the honeymoon period for both Piquet and Jaguar. There was another fourth place for Piquet in Marrakech, he took sixth one race later in Santiago and then scored another fourth at Mexico City.

Jaguar had made a marked improvement since its underwhelming opening season in 2016/17 and the two parties appeared well set to make progress. They left Mexico with Piquet fifth in the standings and not very far off the title fight, but when the championship returned to Europe things started to unravel.

Piquet failed to finish in Rome - a race where Evans fought for the win and lost a possible podium late-on as he ran low on energy - because his seatbelts were not done up properly following the mid-race car swaps. This unfortunate occurrence would happen again at the very next race in Paris, and he did not return to the points until the season finale in New York.

This poor run of form meant Piquet ended up ninth in the 2017/18 standings, 17 points behind Evans - who finished seventh and took Jaguar's first pole position in Zurich.

After finally getting back into the top 10 in New York - where he added six more points to the 45 he had scored in the first five races of that season - Piquet stated that the team needed "to be stronger in every area" ahead of their second season together. He highlighted Jaguar's energy efficiency struggles compared to its rivals - which were most stark when Evans fought for the high positions in Rome and Zurich against the Techeetah and Audi drivers - and the need for the team to eliminate operational incidents, such as the seatbelt problems.

Nevertheless, the 2017/18 results represented a significant step forward for Jaguar and, although nowhere near the heights of his championship-winning season, for Piquet. Both parties entered the Gen2 era hoping to make another big step and aiming for bigger and better results.

When asked about his own performances, particularly in the current campaign, Piquet said: "I'm not performing at the best, for sure."

Instead the slump continued. Piquet did score a point at the first race of the season in Saudi Arabia, where Evans ended up fourth. But that was as good as it got.

In Marrakech, Piquet came home 14th and was 11th on FE's return to Santiago, before he spectacularly crashed over the back of Jean-Eric Vergne in Mexico. Suspension trouble ended his race in Hong Kong and then to cap things off, he crashed by himself at Sanya.

In the other car, Evans has scored 36 points from the opening six races of the 2018/19 season, with a best finish of fourth - and he is one of only two drivers to have scored points at every round, alongside Audi's Abt.

It was in Hong Kong that rumours first emerged in the FE paddock that Piquet might not see out the 2018/19 season. But at Sanya he denied a mid-campaign seat-change was a possibility, and said that he was "not worried about" his future with Jaguar.

"Honestly I mean it's not something I think about much if I stay on," he continued. "We haven't talked about it yet. There are bigger problems on their plates at the moment [than] about choosing drivers. I think, obviously, it doesn't matter what drivers have, if the car is not competing at the level to win races. You need to get a car that is performing well and have a complete package to get things to go well.

"Last year the first six races went amazing. Obviously [we] had several issues from that point onwards but that was not more car related but more seatbelts and other kinds of stuff, which are not really car performance.

"And this year we just dropped back, I would say, compared to everybody else."

When asked about his own performances, particularly in the current campaign, Piquet said: "I'm not performing at the best, for sure." But it was clear where he felt the responsibility for the results ultimately lay.

"If I would have just survived the races I would have scored a few points but it's clear that our average qualifying pace is not as good as last year," he added. "There's no secret there.

"Getting both of our averages [in] qualifying pace is 12th, let's just say. Last year I was in the top 10 most of the time. So we need to sort it out, we need to find more pace in qualifying.

"It's part of this sport. Everybody is improving every weekend, learning more, finding more performance. And I guess other people have stepped up, done a bigger step, bigger jump than we did in the last couple of months. Same as racing in F1 and everywhere else. We just need to make those steps bigger than the others'. We need to catch up because there are a lot of big manufacturers, lots of smart engineers - there's a lot of good people out there.

"Obviously we have a lot of good people too. So, we just need to catch up. In the race, usually the gaps are small because you have less power, you are not braking as deep, the control systems don't take part, they don't suffer as much, you are stressing them less. But in qualifying when you have all that power, when you are braking much more, running the car on the limit, whatever the car can give to the driver, it makes much more of a difference.

Had Piquet made fewer mistakes he might have kept his drive. Had Jaguar produced a better car Piquet might have been able to shine more often

"So yeah long story short, the car needs to perform better in qualifying. Just to get away from these risks of starting at the back and [being] involved in an accident, everything that's involved."

Just five days after those words were spoken, the news broke that Piquet and Jaguar had "mutually agreed" to part ways, with former Virgin Racing driver Alex Lynn drafted in as his replacement. The marriage was over, divorce done, without ever reaching their second - cotton - anniversary.

On the face of it, such a change is understandable - Piquet has not lived up to the expectations that come from being an FE champion. But what of Jaguar? Yes, Evans has scored many more points and decent results so far this year, but there is still yet to be a second podium or pole position. The team has not looked like a pacesetter at any point this season.

Ultimately, this is a case of what might have been for both sides, representatives of which declined to elaborate further on the news of the split when it was announced. Had Piquet made fewer mistakes he might have kept his drive. Had Jaguar produced a better car Piquet might have been able to shine more often.

The 2014/15 season finale was 40 races ago. In that season, when all things were equal when it came to the cars, Piquet stood out above the rest. But things haven't kicked on.

It's been quite a rapid fall for FE's first champion.