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Jaguar team principal Ian James says the team is not overly concerned by its poor recent record in Tokyo as the Formula E championship enters a decisive phase this weekend.
The series returns to Tokyo Big Sight for a double-header staged under the lights on Saturday and Sunday, with only four races remaining in the season. Jaguar arrives in the Japanese capital after a frustrating Shanghai event that damaged both sides of its title challenge.
Mitch Evans scored just four points and lost the lead of the drivers’ championship to Pascal Wehrlein. In the teams’ standings, Porsche has closed to within six points of Jaguar. Antonio Felix da Costa provided the main positive from Shanghai by securing a podium in the opening race at the Shanghai International Circuit during a largely wet event.
The latest Tokyo E-Prix title-fight preview underlines the importance of the night-time double-header, but Jaguar’s own record at the venue makes the weekend particularly significant.
Across the three completed Tokyo races over the past two seasons, Jaguar has collected only 12 points. All of those points came from Nick Cassidy, who now drives for Citroën. Evans, meanwhile, has never finished a race in Tokyo.
On the surface, that record offers little encouragement for Jaguar’s hopes of recovering its momentum. Yet James believes the team’s position changed after the 2025 Tokyo E-Prix, making the previous results a less reliable guide to what lies ahead.
After last year’s Tokyo event, five of the final seven races were won by either Cassidy or Evans. For James, that sequence suggests Jaguar found a way through the difficult period and subsequently unlocked a stronger level of performance and consistency.
“I’m not overly concerned about it, really, because I think Jaguar turned a corner last year after Tokyo,” James told RacingNews365.
He attributed the improvement to a greater understanding of Jaguar’s Gen3 Evo package, which he said unlocked the performance and consistency seen during the second half of the previous season.
“So, as long as that plays a role in making sure we can be strong in Tokyo, then we’ll be okay,” James added. “We’ll keep that focus in mind and make sure we continue improving when we get out there.”
With the championship margins now tight, Tokyo represents more than an opportunity to erase an awkward statistic. It is Jaguar’s first chance to respond directly to the setback in Shanghai—and to prove that its earlier breakthrough can translate to a circuit where its recent record has been notably weak.
He’s a software engineer with a deep passion for Formula 1 and motorsport. He co-founded Formula Live Pulse to make live telemetry and race insights accessible, visual, and easy to follow.