Why Jaguar's Formula E resurgence ensures Porsche won't have it all its own way

Things were looking bleak for Jaguar Racing after the opening two rounds of the 2025-26 Formula E season. The Oxfordshire-based squad left Mexico without a single point to its name, reminiscent of last year’s shuttering start, when it failed to score in four of the first six races. For a team that entered the campaign with title ambitions, this must have felt like deja vu.

However, the weather gods smiled on Jaguar in Miami last month, leading to Mitch Evans scoring an incredible win for the Big Cat at the Hard Rock Stadium. That momentum carried on to the Jeddah double-header, where Evans finished on the podium in the first race before Antonio Felix da Costa delivered a strategy masterclass to claim victory on Saturday. In the space of two weekends, Jaguar vaulted from the bottom of the standings to second place in the teams’ championship, only behind reigning champion Porsche by 27 points.

To understand Jaguar’s rapid turnaround, it’s necessary to revisit what went wrong at the start of the season. Jaguar had undergone some seismic shifts over the winter, with former McLaren chief Ian James joining as team principal to replace WEC-bound James Barclay, while da Costa switched from Porsche to fill the seat vacated by current Citroen driver Nick Cassidy. Inevitably, that led to a transition period, but the core of the team remained intact.

Jaguar turned up to the season opener with high hopes after winter testing, but its Sao Paulo weekend unravelled quickly when Evans slammed the wall after making contact with Envision driver Sebastien Buemi, triggering a virtual contact. Under the caution, Cupra Kiro rookie Pepe Marti misjudged his braking and slammed into the back of da Costa, sending the other Jaguar driver out of the race as well. These kinds of incidents would become a recurring theme for Jaguar in the early races. At Mexico, da Costa was involved in a multi-car collision where he wasn’t completely an innocent party, while Evans missed his Attack Mode activation, partly because his car had been damaged by contact. Even in Miami, where Evans won, da Costa’s race was compromised by contact.

Despite these incidents, there was still some confidence within the camp, primarily because Jaguar had shown some impressive speed in qualifying, even though it wasn’t quite able to contend for the front row.

“When I reflect on Sao Paulo and Mexico, as much as there's always things that you want to do a little bit differently, the execution of those events was pretty good from the team,” Jaguar team boss James told Autosport. “That gave us confidence because we have no reliability issues per se. We had the package in terms of the car, the drivers, the team to fight for podiums and wins as well.

Jaguar's early form was let down by incidents and poor performances in the qualifying duels

Photo by: Beto Issa / LAT Images via Getty Images

“So as we went into Miami, we didn't feel in any way, shape or form that we were on the back foot. We just knew that we had to pull everything together and execute cleanly. And then as long as we didn't become a target for other drivers during the races, we had been in the other team, then things would come good and they did. And it was great to see that coming to fruition for Mitch.”

That said, blaming Jaguar’s lack of results entirely on bad luck would be an oversimplification. At each of the first three rounds of the season, one of the Jaguar drivers failed to break into the duels. That’s why Evans was unsure how he would perform in dry conditions in Jeddah following his wet-weather victory in Miami.

“Honestly, it's been a tough start,” Evans told Autosport prior to Jeddah. “Performance-wise, especially on my side, it's just not been quite there over one lap in the dry conditions, and the races have just been a little bit unlucky, and it's not really gone our way.”

With veteran team principal James at the helm, and former Porsche driver da Costa joining a resurgent Evans, Jaguar has the tools to complete its unfinished business in Formula E

Elaborating on his one-lap troubles, he added: “Just balance and set-up. I ended last year on a really good note in terms of feeling, but then since Sao Paulo I've just not quite had that feeling, and I'm not really sure why. We think we've got an issue with the car, but we won't know until we get on track to see if it's been totally fixed or not.”

Whatever the root cause, it appeared resolved by Jeddah, with Evans scoring points in both races to climb to fifth in the standings. It marks a significant recovery for a driver who finished 13th overall last season, and whose very future in the upcoming Gen4 era has been in doubt for some time.

What was equally crucial for Jaguar was da Costa hitting his stride to score his 13th career win. The Portuguese driver had spent the winter learning new software systems and adjusting to his new surroundings after three years at Porsche. He also had big shoes to fill, with Cassidy’s departure clearly leaving a big gap to fill within the team. So for Jaguar to have both drivers winning races in a span of two events was absolutely crucial under the new leadership of James. The fact that Envision star Buemi completed a 1-2 for Jaguar-powered cars in the second Jeddah race further underlined the strength of the package.

A Jaguar-powered 1-2 in the second Jeddah E-Prix cemented its status as a frontrunner

Photo by: Jed Leicester / LAT Images via Getty Images

It remains to be seen if Jaguar can carry on this form into the European leg of the season. But what’s clear is that Porsche has another viable challenger after an incredible start to its title defence. Thanks to Jake Dennis’ victory with a customer car in the season opener, and some impressive results from the factory team, Porsche had been the team to beat in the early part of the season. Citroen - particularly with ex-Jaguar driver Cassidy - had emerged as a serious threat, but two tough weekends had taken the steam off their early title challenge. One can reasonably expect Stellantis to rejoin the battle at the front in the coming races, but it’s clear that Jaguar will also remain in the thick of the fight.

“It feels good, we're two wins away from Mitch, my team-mate currently holds that record [with 15 wins],” said da Costa. “But it's not something I think about, just scoring points feels good. We had a good weekend with a fifth and a win, that's really solid points, and we kick start our championship here.”

Jaguar’s history in Formula E is one of near-misses. Following da Costa’s triumph in Jeddah, it is now the most successful team in the championship in terms of race wins, while team stalwart Evans also has more victories than any other driver in the series. Yet, the team has fallen short of winning the championship several times. Even its 2023-24 triumph in the teams’ championship was bittersweet, as both Evans and Cassidy narrowly lost the drivers’ championship to Porsche’s Wehrlein.

With veteran team principal James at the helm, and former Porsche driver da Costa joining a resurgent Evans, Jaguar has the tools to complete its unfinished business in Formula E. It already mounted an impressive late-season charge last year, sparked by a run of standout drivers from Cassidy, but that fightback ultimately came too late to overhaul Porsche. With margins so fine in the last year of the Gen3 Evo era, Jaguar cannot afford to spend another campaign playing catch-up. If it wants to turn its race-winning speed into a title, it must stay in contention at every round.