Despite an atypically barren season thus far in a difficult Jaguar Gen3 Evo package, Nick Cassidy remains in the very highest echelon of drivers in Formula E.
As a consequence, he is not only highly prized but also in need of quick ring-fencing by his present team.
Cassidy's record in the last two full seasons before the present campaign has been immense. Along with team-mate Mitch Evans, they have gathered the most points of any duo.
Between them, the Kiwis have scored a staggering 764 points in those two seasons. That stacks up well against, pound for pound, their biggest rivals combined: Porsche's Pascal Wehrlein and Antonio Felix da Costa. They managed 190 points fewer in the same period.
But it's more than just plain statistics. There is the combination of technical investment Cassidy has in his teams, allied to his adeptness in the pack-racing phenomenon that was born in Gen3.
He has been a master at it on more than one occasion. Other drivers and teams have actually studied his and his engineering cell's calls and decision-making process as a kind of template.
That puts his stock and market value higher than most, so his two-year deal with Jaguar is approaching a crucial junction. Even more critical is that the Gen4 development process will begin in earnest this autumn, meaning that there is a benefit for teams having their Gen4 drivers already in place.
Three realistic options appear to be open to Cassidy.
Here we pick through what he and his management team might be mulling over at this precise moment.
Stay at Jaguar
The logical, low-maintenance and safe choice, surely?
Perhaps. But recent events could derail what at one stage felt like an expected extension via a likely option for a third season with the Big Cat.
Those events have clearly been the relative lack of competitiveness of the Jaguar I-Type7 package this season. Cassidy has played his part in attempting to improve Jaguar's prospects but, five races into the campaign, Jaguar has slumped to a lowly eighth from 11 teams in the standings and has three non-scores in five races.
Then there is a perceived brain-drain from Kidlington way. That is probably laying that perception on too thick but nevertheless, two senior figures, Craig Wilson and Phil Charles, have left in the last 18 months, while team principal James Barclay will depart for pastures new in August after the present season is concluded.
Is that playing on Cassidy's mind as the big decision on what to do from 2026 onwards creeps ever nearer?
Yes, it undoubtedly will be, yet the bigger question is perhaps whether he will relish the challenge even more to work with the team he has been so close with to return the form?
Cassidy has that in his makeup. He could have moved from Envision Racing earlier, but felt the team had backed him when he was learning the Formula E ropes in 2020 and 2021. But sometimes with age and experience, loyalty can take a back seat to ambition, and Cassidy has that in blazing abundance.
In his fifth season of Formula E he's still to win a title. and the fact that he has a strong claim of a 'should've, would've' in the last two seasons will still pinch a fair bit.
Already 59 points adrift of the leader (Oliver Rowland) this season, and with a fixed homologation for next season, the argument for Cassidy continuing at Jaguar feels a lot less certain than it did six months ago.
On the credit side, Jaguar is still one of the top teams and probably will continue to be so even after the Barclay era ends this July. It will need a dynamic and savvy leader to steady the ship and manage the Gen4 development.
That surely points to current director and chief of staff Chris Thorp or experienced race director Gary Ekerold getting the nod for that role, but a careful analysis will be gone through before a decision is made this summer.
Cassidy probably can't wait that long because of the Gen4 focus for manufacturers, so timing is everything, and with the whole market seemingly waiting on both Cassidy and da Costa's situations to be resolved, a short state of inertia is freezing the deals at present.
From the Big Cat's lair, the situation seems simple. It wants to keep its prized talent but, without a steel ring fence, that could be challenging.
"Nick has been a real asset to the team, we've seen his time with Envision and his time with us, just how competitive he is," outgoing team principal Barclay told The Race in Miami earlier this month.
"What's very much in our mindset is making sure we go into the future with two drivers that can achieve, that's key to my thinking, key to our thinking in terms of the future and I think we are at an important point, going into Gen4.
"The next year is going to be about preparing for next season but also testing Gen4, so it's actually a really critical time to have to have the driver line-up with the right amount of experience."
Porsche: A da Costa swap?
A sensational swap with his good mate da Costa, with each waving to the other as they pass from Kidlington to Weissach and vice versa, sounds a bit far-fetched, but maybe the odds shouldn't be so long.
That's because the residual damage from da Costa and Porsche's fraught relationship last spring, although largely forgiven, can't be forgotten. Da Costa has been delivering ever since the story about Nico Mueller testing for the team last March, and a disagreement about him not being able to combine endurance and Formula E programmes festered for way too long.
Since then, he has been allowed to compete at Le Mans again. But not in a Porsche. Instead, he will drive for the AF Corse team in an LMP2 car in June. He will relish the sporting challenge of that and being back at La Sarthe, but let's not kid ourselves here: da Costa wants to be in a Hypercar, yet instead his Porsche team-mate Wehrlein gets that courtesy.
You can imagine how a former winner at Le Mans and a WEC champion such as da Costa feels about that. Is that the final nail in his Porsche journey? It may well be, irrespective of whether he wins the title this year or not.
Should he head for the door, it seems clear that Plan A is Mueller slotting in beside Wehrlein, but it is no 'given'. Mueller scored a well-judged fourth place for Andretti in Miami and appears to be more at one with the team after that points haul. But should it not be sustained, and he finishes 60 or 70 points off his team-mate Jake Dennis, then would Porsche still promote him to the factory team?
Most in the paddock think Porsche will either way. But some believe that Cassidy could be a direct da Costa replacement. It's an intriguing prospect but, as of Miami, there was no direct intelligence to back this theory up.
Da Costa at Jaguar also feels a bit awkward. That's mostly because if he wants to do a parallel World Endurance Championship programme, he's unlikely to be able to do it there. Instead, a perfect programme for da Costa would be outside of a manufacturer entry and instead with a strong Formula E customer team that would free him up to race for a manufacturer in the WEC or the IMSA SportsCar Championship.
So, could Cassidy be a potential Plan B for Porsche should Mueller not prove himself results-ready this season? The jury's verdict is inconclusive. But should it somehow happen, it would make for one of Formula E's most sensational moves.
Join a kindred spirit at Penske?
Cassidy and Phil Charles got to see each other close-up in 2022-23 when Jaguar first supplied Envision with a powertrain and engineering support for its successful title campaign, the results behind which Cassidy was the clear majority provider of.
It's said that the pair discovered kindred spirits between them, a methodology and commitment that matched perfectly. Cassidy came close to the title, and Envision ended up beating its manufacturer mothership. Cassidy was given the majority of the credit, but in reality, Charles deserved a heap of it too.
That the pair didn't get to work with each other after Charles's surprise move to Penske in March 2024 is just one of those quirks of fate. But two years on, might they become aligned again?
Charles is an unashamed fan of Cassidy, much as he was of Evans and now is of Jean-Eric Vergne and Maximilian Guenther at DS Penske. He recognises racers that bring extra dimensions to the game, as this quartet all do.
Charles will 100% be briefing Jay Penske about Cassidy's worth should his availability align with an opportunity at Penske and whatever they might do for Gen4.
Discussions between Penske and Cassidy's management team have taken place recently but what isn't known is whether that is over next season or the start of Gen4 in the 2026-27 campaign and beyond.
With some uncertainty as it stands about what Penske's entry might look like in Gen4, why would Cassidy sign now when it isn't fully formed?
The suspicion is that he will know and that it could include two very attractive elements: the previously touched on assimilated approach he could have with Charles and working with Porsche, which could be Penske's next manufacturer collaborator.
So the Cassidy and Penske axis feels like one that has real legs and could become something pretty special for the Gen4 era.
