Jaguar powertrains have dominated the last three races in the all-electric championship, with Mitch Evans winning twice for the British marque and customer team Envision taking victory last time out in Berlin courtesy of Nick Cassidy.
It’s signified a big turnaround in the championship battle, as Porsche hit the ground running with the new-for-2023 Gen3 cars, winning four of the first five races with its drivers Pascal Wehrlein and da Costa, as well as Jake Dennis for customer squad Andretti Autosport.
While Wehrlein and Porsche still lead both the drivers’ and teams’ championships by four and 15 points respectively, da Costa believes the threat from Jaguar has been there since the very start of the season.
“I think we’ve probably equalled out now, but I have to say, they have always been strong,” said da Costa, who sits 32 points behind Wehrlein in the standings ahead of the Monaco E-Prix this weekend.
“They just haven’t executed the perfect start of the year, more or less the start of the year I’ve had against Pascal.
“I don’t think they suddenly appeared, they’ve always been there. Now obviously they’ve got their stuff together and all four cars are executing incredible results.
“For sure, [it's] very tight and [they're] tough opponents but it’s good to have that. Everyone in the team is feeling how hard we want to win it and it keeps everyone honest and motivated.”
Source: Autosport