A seemingly antagonistic hex upon Mitch Evans's relationship with London's ExCeL Formula E circuit continued in Saturday's first race of the season-ending double-header, as he endured a fraught, multi-layered race that he was convinced he should have won easily.
"For some reason, me in this place doesn't seem to gel well in a race," Evans told The Race.
"Small deja vu, but different circumstances. But still the same outcome."
The pain was doubled for Evans as his team-mate Nick Cassidy completed a stunning win, to make Jaguar's recent tally of four victories in five races one of the best runs for any manufacturer in Formula E history. The points also ensured that Jaguar nudged into third position ahead of DS Penske in the 2025 teams' standings.
A painful flashback
Evans's race fell apart in many areas and could be remembered for his expletive-laden rants. But it was also an occasion that brought back those aforementioned "deja vu" flashbacks to the infamous title decider 12 months ago.
That was when Evans felt he had been led in to a strategic cul de sac by his own team that ended with him making a mistake of missing the attack mode loops and allowing Pascal Wehrlein to snatch the title.
He watched this year's race, which he started from an excellent pole, disintegrate after what appeared to be an unnecessarily risky strategy that started to unravel when his first attack mode was delayed and he gave up the lead to Mahindra's Nyck de Vries. Taking attack mode later then dropped him behind Cupra Kiro driver David Beckmann.
Outgoing team principal James Barclay, who is leading the team for the last time this weekend before taking up a role at the new McLaren Hypercar programme in September, told The Race that the strategy was "clearly something we need to look at" and said "the best way of describing it is clearly that wasn't what we were intending".
Barclay added: "We're just going through all of that at the moment because it's really critical when cars stop, the pace of the other cars really kind of changes as well. And that's not something you necessarily fully control.
"But I think it's fair to say as a team that we've got that one point a bit wrong; we have a really incredible strategy group winning an amazing amount of races but every now and then you make a very, very small judgement decision that might have a bigger consequence. And unfortunately, that dropped Mitch behind Beckmann and he wasn't particularly quick. And that cost us a lot."
Evans, who vented furiously to his team in real-time on the radio but was reasoned and calm when he spoke to The Race, said: “To be honest, in terms of strategy, the best way to put it is I should have won easily. And I came out of the Pit Boost in eighth, so you can kind of work it out...some wrong calls were made and I paid the price."
When asked if his strategy was adaptive or largely defined ahead of the race, Evans said that he thought it was "pretty clear what we were doing pre-race".
"We just didn't react good enough once the window opens, which I'm very surprised about," he said. "You miss the [chance to] attack, especially around a track where it's hard to pass, by a lap or two. At other tracks, in Berlin, you can get it wrong by a couple of laps, you can recover it."
Part of the strategy appeared to be Evans being told to impinge on Pascal Wehrlein's race too, in the sense that he would bottle up the outgoing champion as he was about to take his attack mode.
"I was just wanting to hurt his attack mode," said Evans. "If you just let him pass, then he's getting a free run. I couldn't quite do that to Nyck.
"He [De Vries] got a good run on me out of Turn 7, so he got past me quicker than I would have liked, but I should have been on attack at the same time.
"That's where my race fell apart. Once the pit window opened, I should have attacked the same lap as those other guys. And that's where it all went wrong for me."
The Beckmann frustration
"I shouldn't have been behind him," was Evans's curt reaction to falling behind Beckmann, who the Kiwi described as "the worst person on the grid to be behind because he's 4% down, he doesn't hit one apex and he's just losing so much time to everyone else".
"But regardless, I should have not been put in that position in the first place.
"It's pretty clear that someone like Beckmann is coming on a six-minute attack. We don't want to be stuck behind a guy like that. I'm not in his race, he's not in my race. So why we didn't cover that off?
"The other two cars that I was battling, De Vries and Wehrlein, got it right, and we didn't. Look at the finishing positions [they were second and third respectively]!"
The final nail
Evans was spun around by an errant move from Dan Ticktum, as he defended from Jake Dennis, entering the right-left complex at the end of the lap. That dropped him several positions and served ultimately as the final nail in the coffin in terms of any thoughts he might have had about a comeback in the latter phase of the race.
It appeared to be a case of a lag from the doomed strategy, something which Evans, who ultimately walked away with a point for 10th, was again vocal about to The Race.
"Again, I should not have been in that position," he said.
"I should have been up the road in P1. It's a mess sometimes. That's just the consequence of being mid-pack.
"But when you put it on pole, lead basically the whole race until the strategy starts to play its part, I shouldn’t have been down in eighth or whatever I was."
Ticktum was handed a five-place grid penalty for Sunday's season finale as a result of the contact. The Kiro driver continued but then crashed out of the race in the closing stages, triggering a safety car period.
He expressed his remorse immediately on the team radio for the contact and issued a fuller apology after the race, stating that "I'm really sorry to Mitch".
"In Turn 19, I just messed that up. I had Dennis on the outside. Everyone's saving energy and the targets went up. But basically what happened is all the people in the mid-pack had less energy than me, which made them able to pit a lap earlier and then undercut me. And they all got in between me and Cassidy.
"We were just very, very unlucky. I messed up on Mitch. I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry to their whole team and everyone who supports Mitch."
