Sam Bird-Mercedes reserve driver?
- This topic has 6 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 9 months ago by
.
- Posts
The GP2 frontrunner is representing Mercedes at Goodwood. He also participated in the young driver test for Mercedes. I’ve also seen pictures of him on the F1 website in Mercedes gear. Is Sam Bird Mercedes’ missing reserve driver or is the manufacturer simply keeping tabs on him like McLaren are with Oliver Turvey?
Currently Mercedes are without a reserve/third/test driver. A top team is expected to have a spare driver, and I think he would be chosen by the German team if one of their two drivers was to be substituted. Probably Bird is Mercedes’ reserve driver but it’s not official, who knows why. Maybe they want to remain a fully-German outfit so they keep the Briton out of the team whilst he remains thier first choice as a tester.
I’m sure I had a dream the other day where Schumacher got injured, and if I remember correctly it was Sam Bird who replaced him. So, if we accept that my brain is a font of F1 knowledge, then yes, Bird is their 3rd driver
Last time I checked Wikipedia, I think Mercedes were the only team without a 3rd driver. Presumably they’ll have a contingency plan in place in case one of their drivers got injured, but it’s strange that they haven’t made any official announcements
I guess Mercedes would immediately draft in Di Resta in case they had a problem with one of their regular drivers actually.
Sorry to say, your dream might not have been correct Ned!
The I newspaper, hardly a reliable source, states that Bird is the official test and reserve driver for mercedes.
Ned, I’m going to disagree with you. If Mercedes had to call up a driver to replace an unwell Rosberg or Schumacher, I believe they’d choose Gary Paffet. Paffet has his Mercedes links via McLaren and the DTM, and he’s probably the most experienced man to never start a grand prix. Bird’s priority is to win GP2, whereas Paffet would already be driving for his employers (Mercedes), albeit a different series. Paffet just got that lengthy contract extension, so he has plenty more years to win in DTM after a temporary F1 gig, while Bird should concentrate on GP2 so he can win it and graduate to F1, as making a career out of junior formulae is the worst thing that can happen to an up-and-coming driver.
Mercedes has other young drivers they support, though, like Will Stevens and Renger van der Zande.
If Mercedes doesn’t have one problem, it’s reserve drivers. They have eight DTM drivers available (one of which is Ralf Schumacher). They have Di Resta. They have contacts to Bird. Heck, they even have a number of Formula 3 drivers. So there is no need to panic in this regard.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.