Cassidy striving to see bright side amid 'disaster' FE season

Nick Cassidy has branded his Formula E season so far as a “disaster,” having notched up a sole podium finish a season on from taking the championship fight to the final round, but he's seeing promising signs amid the frustrating results.

Jaguar has lagged behind rivals Porsche and Nissan this season, leaving works driver Cassidy (pictured at right, above, with teammate Mitch Evans) a far cry from where he was last season. Now, instead of looking at the big picture of the season, it’s more a case of taking each race as it comes as Jaguar looks to close the gap once again.

“It's no secret this season has been a disaster,” he said. “In my mind, it's more about just having fun, doing what we do, scoring some good race results.”

Cassidy turned a corner in Monaco last time out with a third-place finish in the second race of the Monaco E-Prix, but it wasn’t the end result that stands out to him, but rather the improvements he and the team made earlier in that day.

“I'm most positive about Monaco from FP3,” he said. “I thought we were very strong in FP3. We turned that around a lot from day one. We missed FP1, more or less, and I think that put us on the back foot more than we expected. But the learnings we could kind of take from that, give me good confidence for the rest of the season.

“The race was good, but qualifying wasn't, so we've definitely got some areas that we know we need to work on. We're confident we can get better.”

This weekend sees Cassidy return to a country where he has enjoyed immense success in the past, with him winning the 2015 Japanese Formula 3 title, then the SuperGT crown two years later, before taking the Super Formula championship in 2019. In last year’s Tokyo E-Prix, a penalty in qualifying set his weekend off on the wrong path, but he was able to rescue an eighth-place finish by the end of the race.

“Last year I feel like we were probably the only car that could match [Maximilian Guenther and Oliver Rowland],” he said. “Unfortunately, we didn't get that chance. We were thrown out of qualifying, and that made it for a tough day. But I feel like the track suits me. I'm excited to come back for this one and hopefully carry on with some good momentum from Monaco.”