Formula E title contender Nick Cassidy will become a Jaguar driver and partner fellow New Zealander Mitch Evans next season, with Sam Bird leaving after three seasons with the team.
The Race has learned that Cassidy recently agreed to a multi-year deal to join Jaguar from the customer Envision Racing squad Cassidy has raced for since 2020 and with whom he is currently fighting for the 2023 Formula E title.
The deal is believed to have been confirmed just after last month’s Portland E-Prix.
In a statement provided to The Race by Jaguar, team principal James Barclay said: “Our focus is very much on this season’s fight for both the team and driver world championship titles and having a successful end to this very competitive season.
“Whilst we are of course well underway with our planning for the 2024 ABB FIA Formula E world championship season we will announce relevant news, including that of our driver line-up, at a later date.”
Cassidy, who will replace the outgoing Bird, has been one of the standout drivers of the season and has won races in Berlin, Monaco and most recently at Portland.
The 28-year-old and his representatives have been locked in dialogue with Jaguar and Envision for several months, as his three-year deal with his current outfit comes to a close this summer.
Cassidy joined Envision in the summer of 2020, having originally been earmarked for a test at Mahindra to replace Porsche-bound Pascal Wehrlein. Those plans changed when Bird executed his move to Jaguar for the 2020-21 season, and Cassidy instead began a three-season relationship with Chinese-owned, UK-based squad Envision.
His maiden Formula E campaign initially started fitfully, with Cassidy taking several events to bed in. But by the fourth event of the 2021 season in Rome he qualified on pole position and briefly led the race before retiring with damage. He followed that performance up with another pole in New York City but was unable to replicate fellow rookie Jake Dennis’s achievement of winning a race in his first season.
A year later, Cassidy reprised his New York City performance but this time won the race – although he did embed his car in the barriers after a freak cloudburst hit the circuit.
This season he has excelled as the Envision team changed from Audi to Jaguar power, going on a remarkable streak of podium positions and wins from the fourth round in Hyderabad in February to Monaco, which he won, in late April.
A further victory at Portland last month put Cassidy one point behind championship leader Dennis as Formula E heads to Rome this weekend for the penultimate event of the season.
His achievements have come this season against the backdrop of some mild turbulence on his side of the garage, as Cassidy raced at Portland three weeks ago with his third engineer of the season.
Robert Sattler, who had worked with Cassidy until the Jakarta round in June, vacated his position to take up a role at Aston Martin F1, while Sattler’s replacement Ramiro Garcia also left the team after that Jakarta double-header.
At Portland the team implemented primarily a team committee structure in conjunction with Cassidy, although performance engineer Maxime Menneglier acted as de facto race engineer.
Confirmation of Cassidy’s move to join Evans at Jaguar is expected to come after the end of the present season.
As well as pursuing Cassidy, Jaguar is also known to have held discussions with Dennis’s representatives earlier this year before settling on its signing of choice.
Dennis is under what has been described to The Race by someone close to his situation as a “locked and loaded” contract with Andretti for 2024.
