Mitch Evans delivered a standout drive at the 2025/26 Formula E Miami E-Prix, storming from ninth on the grid to victory.
The Miami E-Prix was held in challenging wet weather conditions, which ultimately played to Evans’ strengths. The Kiwi took his first round of ATTACK MODE on Lap 19, which launched him from P7 to P3, past Felipe Drugovich. A few laps later, he battled his Jaguar TCS teammate António Félix da Costa for P2, smoothly making it past, eager to chase the win.
Contact between his rivals, Drugovich and da Costa, on Lap 27 opened the door, and Evans attacked for the lead on the main straight one lap later. After taking the lead away from Nico Müller, Evans took his second ATTACK MODE and built a gap of 0.3151 seconds to take the win.
An unexpected win
The Jaguar TCS Racing driver arrived in Miami without points this season after a DNF in São Paulo and a P11 finish in Mexico City. The weekend started off with difficulty as Evans struggled to find pace on the dry Miami International Autodrome circuit, finishing FP1 in 19th and FP2 in 16th, before qualifying in P9.
Evans shared that he did not expect the win, especially after having lacked pace in practice.
“Honestly I wasn’t expecting it after practice and qualifying, just because we’ve been really struggling in the dry here,” he said after the race. “So when the rain came down, again it’s like what am I going to have in these conditions? It’s always a bit of a annoying when it rains and I knew from the first few laps that I had a good, really good car underneath me and I just wanted to, you know, pick off some of the guys and then you know, once I caught up to the front pack and they’d all kind of done an attack and I’d not done an attack, I knew I was in a really good position. So then I just had to execute, not make mistakes and then obviously get the move done on Nico [Müller].”
With this win, Evans moves up to 6th place in the Drivers’ Championship, while Taguar TCS Racing takes 7th in the Teams’ Championship.
“So yeah, a really, really strong race and yeah, just want to, you know, use this as a resetter for us in terms of our championship. It’s been a really tough start, about 25 points. Yeah, we’ll definitely take it and then move on to Jeddah.”
Charging through the field
When asked about whether gaining eighth positions was a fun or challenging task, Evans said, “Yeah, I mean when you make those places up it’s always fun and I really felt like I had a good advantage over some people so that always helps. But yeah, just had to try and be smart, play the long game but the pace just made it, you know, in terms of strategy and it made life for us a lot easier.”
He added: “So I wish I had that pace every race. Unfortunately it’s not possible most of the time but yeah, just full credit to the team and yeah, we should have worked out what we need to do in the dry, because I’m lacking something there and it’s really bizarre. All season’s been tough so being in these conditions, yeah, it’s worked out for us today but we’ll think about that on Monday.”
With Round 4 and 5 of the Jeddah E-Prix up next on February 13-14, Evans joked about the possibility of rain after his wet-weather success in Miami.
“It’s unlikely it’s going to happen but we had a few sprinkles last year, but yeah, we’ll see what happens.”
Record-breaking Formula E victory
The Miami E-Prix win marks Evans’ 15th Formula E victory, making it a new all-time record as he surpasses Sébastian Buemi’s previous record.
“I think the first one’s always very special,” said Evans when asked about which of his FE wins is the most special.
“They’re all special, they’re all worth the same amount of points. Yeah, they’re all just different as well. This one was just more unexpected than anything and because these conditions are so challenging, you know, concentration has to be perfect and yeah, I mean, they’re all important, they’re all lovely. It’s hard to know where this one stacks up but after the season that we’ve had so far, obviously it feels like it’s relatively up there.”
