Evans defends dejected Cassidy after 'quite clear' Vergne incident

Mitch Evans' frustrations with the stewards "completely wrong" approach continued at the inaugural Misano E-Prix, after Nick Cassidy's race was "ruined" by Jean-Eric Vergne.

On the fifth lap of what was the latest extreme peloton race, Cassidy made contact with the wall at Turn 9, after colliding with Vergne. The FIA judged that Vergne "caused a collision" and was given a five-second time penalty, which he labelled as the "most unfair" of his career.

Cassidy was forced to pit due to damage and later retired from the race, leaving him visibly dejected afterwards.

"I think it was quite clear," a dejected Cassidy told RacingNews365, when asked for his thoughts on the penalty. "Where am I meant to go?"

When asked for his thoughts on the stewards, Cassidy opted against commenting; however, Evans had no issue expressing his frustration at their apparent inconsistency.

It was, of course, Vergne who Evans was forced into a wall by in Diriyah, an incident which was not investigated by the stewards. On that day, Evans lost a podium, whilst in Misano Cassidy retired.

Evans continues to believe that the stewards are judging incidents based on their outcome rather than the action itself, which he stresses should not be the case.

"I mean, there's too much looking at it like, not too much the action, but the result of the action," Evans told RacingNews365. "Obviously, Nick had his front-wing and his race ruined, for me, I lost the podium.

"They look at it like that, which is completely wrong in my opinion. Same driver which is funny, but yeah, just doesn't seem to change, it always seems to be reactive to the consequence of the action, rather than what the driver actually does. So yeah, frustrating to be honest."

'Questionable' driving standards

It was not just Vergne's and Cassidy's incident Evans did not like, with the Jaguar driver having been left disappointed by several "distasteful manoeuvres".

The New Zealander thinks some drivers in the category do not understand how to race in Formula E, with those creating the incidents typically being the drivers that complain in driver briefings.

"Today, I saw some really like questionable driving from drivers that get paid to race," revealed Evans. "Just really distasteful manoeuvres.

"Some guys race so well in this category, but some just don't get it and just in my opinion, like it's dirty."

Evans later added: "We talked about it in drivers' briefing, and all those guys that bring up all these issues are the worst out there as well."