Autosport Top 50 of 2023: #17 Mitch Evans

A case of so near yet so far once again for Mitch Evans in Formula E. He racked up the joint-most wins with four and, like the previous two campaigns, entered the final round with a shot at the title. The Jaguar driver took until the sixth race of the season in Sao Paulo to register a first win, but followed it up immediately with victory in Berlin as his powertrain hit its stride.

His domination of the Rome opener was undone by a collision of his own making with Nick Cassidy in the sequel, and ultimately meant another triumph in London wasn’t enough to deny Jake Dennis the title.

Top 10: Ranking the best Formula E drivers of 2022-23

Q&A with Mitch Evans

Q: You did everything to try and win the title, what were the key moments for you?

Mitch Evans: That Rome mistake hurts more now, but it’s obviously over the course of the whole championship, it’s not just one race [that makes the difference]. I just want to congratulate Jake on his world championship.

Photo by: Andreas Beil

Mitch Evans says 2023 was "positive" despite key mistakes ending his title hopes

Between the three of us [Evans, Dennis and Cassidy] that came into this [London] race with a chance of winning, we all deserved it in different ways, but Jake’s been solid all year. Full credit to him and his team. I would have liked to take it to the final race, but it’s just not meant to be. Another year where I’ll say, ‘hopefully next year’.

Q: How do you reflect on your season?

ME: It’s a tricky one to judge. I think I’ve got to look at it as a positive year. I got four victories, many podiums. At one stage of the championship, I was not even considering being a title contender because I think I was 80-plus points behind (66 points prior to his Sao Paulo victory-ed). So, to reduce that and be in the fight coming into the last weekend, I think showed how strong the season was.

I’ll be clearly aiming to have a smooth year next year, or smooth start, because we lost so many points for different reasons and they’re obviously frustrating and will now be frustrating going into the off-season. But it is what it is. Everyone has got their own little story, that’s mine.

I think me and the team can be proud of what we’ve achieved and I’m definitely happy with my personal performance. But like always, you want to keep making improvements and hopefully next year we can start off strongly and go from there.