Evans "owes" second Rome E-Prix win to Jaguar Formula E team-mate Bird

Evans was due to take his attack mode - a solitary allotted activation of eight minutes in the second Rome race - on the 18th lap, but the stranded Mahindra of Alexander Sims prompted the emergence of the race's second safety car, which stopped Evans from being able to arm it.

With 12 minutes left on the clock at that point, Evans was at risk of not being able to see out the full attack mode runtime - which would result in a penalty.

But with the addition of more added time, with the safety car periods resulting in a total of five minutes and 15 seconds being added to the end of the normal 45 minutes, Evans had enough in hand to collect and serve his full attack mode.

At the restart, Evans benefitted from Bird keeping the bulk of the pack at bay to ensure he only lost a single position to Jean-Eric Vergne when taking the 250kW power level boost.

The Kiwi quickly dispatched Vergne on the following lap, and then scythed his way past Frijns and Lotterer successively to move into the lead - which he ultimately did not relinquish.

Bird declared to Autosport that Evans was the new "emperor of Rome", for which Evans was grateful.

"He really helped me today," Evans explained.

"I owe this one to him because he held off JEV a little bit, and not really intentionally, just sort of did what he had to do just to make sure I had a nice little gap.

"It feels good to hear that from your team-mate and he's been great. It's a shame, I'm not really sure what happened to him in the end [when he crashed with Nick Cassidy].

"I thought we'd be able to move to the front together so we need to analyse that, but I'm sure he'll be back."

Mitch Evans, Jaguar Racing, Jaguar I-TYPE 5, Sam Bird, Jaguar Racing, Jaguar I-TYPE 5, Robin Frijns, Envision