The key player to lead Jaguar away from its "dark moments"

Few things in life deserve to be called iconic. But when it comes to motorsport brands, Jaguar is one of them.

It is, after all, a manufacturer with seven Le Mans wins - behind only Ferrari, Audi and Porsche. Its motorsport success runs deeply into history.

But its recent efforts on the sporting scene haven't hit those heights. Its Formula 1 entry at the beginning of the millennium yielded a notably poor return on investment in terms of results and, so far, its latest single-seater venture has yet to rack up eye-catching stats.

But, as ever with these things, numbers can be deceiving.

Jaguar may have made a disastrous debut in Formula E - there's no getting away from that - but in the two subsequent seasons it has made genuine progress. But just looking at the finishing positions in the three teams' championships it has entered will give a false impression. After coming home 10th and dead last in its rookie 2016/17 campaign, Jaguar improved to sixth in '17/18 - with one podium and a pole. In '18/19 it ended up slipping back to seventh, but that doesn't show the full picture.

To be irritatingly tantalising, let's go back to the start of that season. At pre-season testing at Valencia, rumours pinged around the paddock that the team was in trouble with its package and that it was under severe pressure. Then came the first race and Mitch Evans finished fourth, surging from eighth on the grid.

The team felt it had inherent speed in its powertrain, and Evans's start to the season backed that up - even if Jaguar, like everyone else, was some way off the level of DS Techeetah in Saudi Arabia. Evans kept plugging away in the early races, but after getting caught up in the chaos resulting from Jean-Eric Vergne's first corner spin in Marrakech and coming home ninth there, the team did not kick on as it had hoped.

Eventually, the result came that changed everything - Evans's victory in Rome, which was Jaguar's first international series win in 28 years. From there he was a genuine title contender and finished the year with a brace of second places in Bern - where he pushed Vergne hard for the win - and the first New York race. But it was the Rome triumph that mattered most - the relief emanating from the team as it celebrated under darkening skies in the Italian capital was visible.

Evans might have been a title contender last season, but Jaguar ended up some way off in the teams' standings due to the poor contribution from the other car. Nelson Piquet Jr scored just a single point in six races, and left the squad by mutual consent after the Sanya event. Although Alex Lynn added 10 more, he was stymied by a few incidents and very unfortunate reliability issues in Berlin and New York that probably cost him podium finishes.

So, while Jaguar's 2018/19 season goes down as a step backwards on paper, it was anything but in reality. For the upcoming '19/20 campaign, it is surely targeting another improvement.

"We took a direction with the car that we thought was the right way to go, and the marginal time loss that gave us was a massive difference" James Barclay

It now has the first, and possibly most important, part in place to achieve that aim: Evans is back. It was announced on Thursday that the 2012 GP3 champion would stay with the team for another year, agreeing what he described as a rolling year-by-year contract extension after getting "a lot of interest" from rival squads. Porsche was heavily linked with Evans in paddock gossip during last season - there's a link there with his long-time mentor Mark Webber, who is still a Porsche ambassador - before it signed Andre Lotterer to partner Neel Jani.

The reason Evans is key to Jaguar's hopes for the new season is that he is on the verge of joining the elite group of drivers at the top of the FE field. Where once there was just Sebastien Buemi and Lucas di Grassi (not forgetting Sam Bird), there is now Vergne and soon they will be joined by the 25-year-old New Zealander.

Autosport ranked him second behind Vergne in last season's top 10 FE drivers. His New York race one drive was one of the best of the season as he charged to second from 13th on the grid, pulling off a series of bold moves to stay in title contention until the final race.

Despite sealing his best FE championship finish with fifth - which could have been even better had he not tangled with di Grassi on the last lap of the season finale - Evans felt that things could have been even better, which is why he now looks back with "mixed emotions".

This is linked to Jaguar's post-Marrakech form. A development direction - centred around set-up and the software updates the team brought to the races between Santiago and Sanya - caused Jaguar to have "dark moments", according to Evans. It had hoped the changes would lead to a performance step, but it ended up having the opposite effect.

"The margins are so small in Formula E," says Jaguar's team principal James Barclay. "We took a direction with the car that we thought was the right way to go, and the marginal time loss that gave us - when you look at not being able to get everything out of the car, the drivers not having the confidence they would have liked - [was] a massive difference.

"We got to the halfway point of the season and had to make some tough calls. But as a team we had that moment where we said, 'listen, we know we have a quick car, we know we have the ability to be at the front of the field, let's just go back to what we were doing at the start of the year'. We restarted the season in Rome, and straight away that turned things around."

Like the rest of the FE manufacturers, Jaguar has been conducting its private testing programme ahead of the group 2019/20 running at Valencia - "knuckling into it", says Evans. But a key factor in making sure it does make another step up the FE grid this season will be learning the lessons of what went wrong last time and avoiding such pitfalls in the future.

Evans says that after the New York event back in July "there was obviously a lot of analytical stuff going on".

"I've given my point across of where I want the focus to be [now] and the team is very much aware of that and they've got a strong direction now with where we want to go.

"To finish off the season like that was really important - not for everyone's confidence, but also just from a directional point of view for the next season so we just know what we're doing is on the right track. Now, let's just try and take everything to another level and that's what everyone's big focus is on."

Evans explains that the team has produced "a whole new package" for 2019/20, which he hopes has the "little 0.5-1% differences that are going to make the difference" to get the team to where it wants to be.

A logical move for Jaguar would be to make Evans its focal point. With Piquet, the inaugural FE champion, gone, he's its proven performer - and there's yet to be confirmation of his team-mate for 2019/20, although this is set to be revealed at the team's official launch on October 2.

Evans has the speed and the FE racecraft - look at his tactical nous using attack mode to defeat Andre Lotterer in Rome, his harrying of Vergne all race in Bern, and the way he climbed to the podium in New York without destroying his energy reserve. And he is a determined character, even if he is keen to play down any suggestion he is now Jaguar's clear team leader, which speaks to his earnest character.

Evans has shown what he can produce, and so has Jaguar. Now they both need to avoid a return to the darkness

"It depends which way you look at it," he says. "From a treatment point of view, [I'm] definitely not [a clear team leader], it's all equal in the team, as I would 100% want. Obviously I'm the one that's got that win for them, got the podiums and stuff, I've been there since day one, so people may think that.

"It's probably natural to think that, but whoever is next to me will definitely be getting the same treatment as me. But obviously I'm maybe a bit more established in the team, and they trust all my feedback, so there's maybe some things they will trust me [with] in terms of feedback."

Evans has been with Jaguar since its first steps in FE. He's grown with the team, which has enabled him to improve too.

"Where Mitch has really developed is that ability to execute the weekend," says Barclay. "The natural speed is absolutely there, but it's a really complex and difficult championship to translate pace into wins. Many drivers this year have shown pace and haven't been able to translate that. And Mitch has, and I think that's been the big step.

"That step change for Mitch [last season was] his ability to execute the race - deal with the challenges the race throws at you. And be ahead of that as a driver - to know if a problem is thrown your way [that] you can deal with it."

Evans doesn't shy away from outlining his hopes for the new season: "Hopefully in 12 months' time well be talking about defending my championship." That is a refreshingly clear statement in a pre-season that has so far been characterised by the intentional (albeit understandable) down-playing of expectations from the headline-grabbing new squads at Mercedes and Porsche.

But then Evans is a straight-talker. Considered, easy-going but firm, honest. A Webber protege indeed.

"I'm really happy with the direction that the guys are going in and there seems to be quite a clear picture with where the team wants to be in the next few seasons," he concludes.

"It's nice to be a real key part of that. Especially at this level, it's obviously not F1 level but it's getting pretty high. To be a key player in that is very special. The dream for me is to reward them with a championship, and to get Jaguar - we've seen them back on the top step from Rome - to really fight for the championship throughout the season and be a strong title threat."

Evans has shown what he can produce, and so has Jaguar. Now they both need to avoid a return to the darkness and deliver the ultimate dream.