Jaguar's I-Pace battery-electric SUV has won the 2019 Car of the Year award in an incredibly tight contest between it and Renault's Alpine sports coupé. Formal voting ended with each car sharing 250 votes apiece; the first time there's been a draw in the Coty award since it was started in 1964.

In keeping with the rules, the votes were then recounted to see which of the 60 jurors voted each car ahead of the other; with that recount done, the Jaguar came out first with 18 first places ahead of the Alpine's 16.

This is the first Jaguar to win the award in the Coty's 55 years and a visibly delighted Ian Callum, Jaguar's director of design, received the award from jury president Frank Janssen.

"Wow, was that close or what," said Callum, "thank you very much. I don't understand why people make such a fuss over battery electric cars winning this award though; this is the future. It's a whole new Jaguar on a whole new platform and it's the most exciting car I've ever worked on."

The voting on the seven-strong shortlist was close, with five models taking the lead in the voting announcement which is done in the style of the Eurovision Song Contest, with each country announced at a time in alphabetical order. As well as the Jaguar and the Alpine, Ford's Focus, Citroën's C5 Aircross and Kia's Ceed hatchback each held the lead during the count and when the vote went to the last country, the UK, with six judges including yours truly, the leading vehicle was Kia's Ceed with 234 votes.