Piquet: Extra pressure on Jaguar Formula E after strong start

Nelson Piquet Jr. believes Jaguar faces extra pressure for this weekend's Formula E race in Marrakesh after recording its best results in the series to date in Hong Kong last month.

After a difficult first season in Formula E, Jaguar recorded its first Super Pole appearance and podium finish in Hong Kong, matching the points total from its debut campaign after just a single round.

Piquet finished fourth in Saturday's season-opener in Hong Kong before teammate Mitch Evans took P3 in the Sunday race, which while giving Jaguar confidence also puts the team under greater pressure to perform in Marrakesh on Saturday.

"I think it adds a little bit of pressure on us. We both each had one good result over there, so obviosuly everybody is going to expect the same," Piquet told Crash.net.

"I don’t know if it’s going to be harder or achievable, we never know. Obviously we’re going to aim for the best, but we’ll see what happens.

"We learned a lot. With all the new members in the team, it was good it was a double-header because we could repeat it and really see where the weak areas are and where the strong ones are.

"We will just work hard now to keep improving, keep eliminating the weak parts, the mistakes, and the usual things."

Team boss James Barclay echoed Piquet's thoughts, stressing that one good weekend did not make the season as successful one, as impressive as Jaguar's showing in Hong Kong may have been.

"We were really pleasantly surprised that our pace was really strong, particularly the single lap pace which we saw which was great," Barclay said.

"From that point of view, it was a good confidence builder in the sense that everything we believe is the right process and the right areas of the car to address came to reality in a good performance. From that point of view that was a great stand-up to the work and effort and our belief in terms of the car’s performance.

"We’ve only seen one race, and one swallow doesn’t make a summer, so we now have to see where we are here in Marrakesh and we have to go from there. But a great start."