Nick Cassidy is set to leave the Jaguar Formula E team at the end of the current season.
The Race can reveal that Cassidy made his decision around the time of the Monaco E-Prix in late April/early May.
Sources close to the situation have outlined to The Race that he has signed an agreement with another team from next season onwards, in what is believed to be a long-term deal that will go well into the new Gen4 ruleset, which begins at the end of 2026.
It is anticipated that Cassidy's new employer will be from the Stellantis range of brands, although he was also in recent talks with several other manufacturers and teams - including the Penske organisation, which is currently DS's partner but is expected to split with Stellantis for the Gen4 period.
The previously speculated option of replacing Antonio Felix da Costa at Porsche is understood by The Race to not be a realistic proposition. Additionally, any opportunity to join Oliver Rowland at Nissan is also presently off the table.
Cassidy joined Jaguar in the autumn of 2023 as team-mate to friend and fellow Kiwi Mitch Evans. He has so far won two E-Prix races, captured seven other podium finishes and was likely to have won the 2024 title but for his inexplicable spin out of the lead of the Portland race.
His title charge was finally ended in the London finale last July when Da Costa inadvertently damaged Cassidy's car in the late stages of the race, although this came after Cassidy was put on the back foot by uncertain strategy by the Jaguar team while attempting to choreograph Cassidy and Evans in an effort to best fend off a charging Pascal Wehrlein (who ultimately beat both Jaguar drivers to the title).
This season Cassidy has struggled to maintain the same form with a tricky Jaguar Gen3 Evo package - the Jaguar I-Type7 - in which he and Evans have not been able to consistently race at the front of the field.
He netted a third place in Monaco earlier this month and has gathered points in a further three races. But overall Jaguar has been unable to challenge the Nissan-, Porsche- and occasionally Stellantis-powered cars and Cassidy is only 13th in the championship, 128 points behind first-placed Rowland, having led the standings at this point in 2024.
A Jaguar statement issued on Wednesday didn't confirm nor deny the impending split, though described the report as "speculative". It said "both the team and Nick are fully focused on maximising their performance over the remaining seven rounds of the season" and that an announcement of plans for next season will follow "in due course".
"Nick is an exceptional racing driver, and our focus at Jaguar TCS Racing is to provide him with the very best race car we can for the remainder of season 11 so he can fight for points, podiums and wins," said team principal James Barclay.
"That work continues here in Shanghai this weekend - and any announcement about Nick's future with the team will come in due course."
Cassidy was quoted as part of the statement, too, simply saying that he and Jaguar will continue to "fight hard for success".
How will Cassidy's Jaguar time be judged?
Cassidy entered the works Jaguar team in September 2023 with a glowing reputation after pushing Jake Dennis close to the title while at Jaguar's customer Envision Racing, a team he first joined in 2020.
He was perhaps only denied a chance of taking that title after intra-team choreography with team-mate Sebastien Buemi scuppered a chance of a win in the crucial penultimate race held at London ExCeL.
By that time, Cassidy had already agreed to join Jaguar, which had seen first-hand his strong technical ethic and silky execution of Gen3 pack racing. Ironically, Cassidy's deal with Jaguar came just before that summer's Rome E-Prix when future team-mate Evans swiped both of them out of contention and seriously affected both their title chances.
That started an inevitable campaign in some quarters to accentuate a rivalry that could spill over between them. Despite some tense events and exchanges on track between them, their friendship survived.
Cassidy took to Jaguar like a duck to water and was instantly on the pace, scoring a first win in only his fourth race in Diriyah and immediately becoming a title contender along with Evans.
There were numerous occasions when he proved to be an additional key technical tool in the Jaguar team, showing a now-famed capacity to surprise even experienced engineers with his detailed understanding of the Gen3 car and how to run races in real time with frequent strategic leadership calls in conjunction with his side of the garage as races developed.
Among his many impressive performances during his time with Jaguar was undoubtedly at the London finale last year when a technical issue in free practice put him hugely on the back foot as he entered a decider against team-mate Evans and eventual champion Wehrlein.
A succession of brilliant laps in qualifying were hammered in with clinical precision and set up an unlikely first pole for Cassidy at this new team, putting him on the front foot instead for the title play-off against Evans and Wehrlein before things unravelled.
Even this season, amid a paucity of opportunities to fight for wins, Cassidy has mostly performed superbly - notably his races in Monaco and Tokyo recently.
Ironically, it was around the time of the first of those events that Cassidy is believed to have made his decision to exit Jaguar.
In time he will explain why he is leaving the Big Cat now, but the assumption is that with the Jaguar I-Type 7's inability to mount a serious challenge to Nissan and Porsche, and with a set homologation for next season meaning Jaguar is technically stuck, to a degree Cassidy simply needed a fresh challenge.
Hitting 31 this year means that he will enter the prime of his career, needing to be in a position over the next two to three seasons to win a title that he probably should have already notched up.
While at Jaguar, Cassidy has reiterated and amplified that he is in the highest echelon of Formula E drivers. And that's why he has both been poached and has elected to try something new as the Gen4 era approaches.
