Jaguar’s victory in Formula E’s Shanghai opener with Mitch Evans was tempered by team tactics that left its championship leader Nick Cassidy clearly disgruntled and with a reduced points advantage of 13 over Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein.

Evans, fifth in the championship and 43 points behind his team-mate pre-race, was Jaguar’s lead runner throughout, having qualified third while Cassidy started only 10th.

But while Evans was up front battling primarily the Porsches through the cagey first three-quarters of another ‘peloton’-style race of cars running side by side conserving energy, Cassidy stayed in the midfield until the closing stages and had 1-2% more useable energy remaining than the other frontrunners by the time he made his way into the lead pack.

When Cassidy reached third with four laps to go, Evans was challenging Wehrlein for the lead.

Having felt Porsche had previously held back too long in similar races, this time Wehrlein rued how much time his team was willing to spend in the energy-inefficient position of race leader, meaning he was having to conserve more than the Jaguars going into the closing laps.

A frustrated Cassidy asked “can somebody talk to me?” on team radio as he loomed behind his team-mate while Evans repeatedly attacked the defensive Wehrlein for the lead to no avail. One particular incident at the final chicane in which Wehrlein cut across the grass raised Jaguar’s frustration most of all.

“We’re still holding,” was engineer Phil Ingram’s instruction to Cassidy regarding attacking Evans for second.

“So I’m supporting him [Evans] until the end of the race?” Cassidy asked.

“That’s the instruction at the moment,” came the reply.

Jaguar’s strategy appeared to be that both its cars had a sufficient energy advantage to get past Wehrlein and secure a 1-2 on the last lap. But that didn't reckon with how ferociously Wehrlein would defend his position.

Evans finally made it past around the outside into Turn 1 starting the final lap, with Wehrlein having to back off earlier than he wanted as his energy situation took effect.

He then felt Evans deliberately slowed him to try to let Cassidy get past him too - which Wehrlein firmly resisted.

As Evans headed for the chequered flag, contact in the final chicane meant Wehrlein kept second and Cassidy - bodywork flying from his car - only just held off Oliver Rowland’s Nissan for third.