Evans battles battery overheating en route to Sao Paulo podium

Mitch Evans finally broke his 2023-24 season podium drought in the Sao Paulo E-Prix, but admitted the occasion was “bittersweet” as he narrowly missed out on victory.

The Jaguar TCS Racing driver was leading from the final safety car restart on lap 20 but succumbed to pressure from Sam Bird in the final sequence of corners on the last lap of the race. But while he described Bird’s daring pass around the outside of Turn 10 as “a great move,” he revealed that a loss of power in the extremely hot temperatures were key to his downfall.

“It’s bittersweet given that a few laps ago I thought it was going to be [a win] for us again,” he conceded. “But I started getting some temperature warnings quite quickly and then it kind of escalated on the last lap. I had a huge de-rate on the last lap with power.

“I had run out of power, so even if Sam didn’t overtake me there, he probably would’ve got me at the start/finish line. So yeah, [it’s] a bit frustrating with that because I had loads of energy left but I was just trying to bring it home…just a little bit shy, two corners shy. But to lose it out to Sam, he’s been through a really tough period and it’s really cool to see him back on the top step as well.”

Evans says he feels there’s not much more he could do to salvage the situation, pointing out that he’d never been put through something like it before.