McLaren have signed Sam Bird for the 2024 Formula E season, after the ultra-experienced Briton lost his seat at Jaguar.
Bird has been racing in the all-electric series since the inaugural 2014-15 season and has only missed four of the 116 eprix that have taken place across nine seasons.An opening appeared at McLaren a week ago when Rene Rast was confirmed to have left the team after a unremarkable comeback season in the series. Rast ended the season 13th in the championship, making the podium in the third race of his return at Diriyah but then going ten races in a row without scoring.
Bird will be aiming to be more consistently in the points alongside his new team mate Jake Hughes, particularly as he only has a one-year deal with McLaren.
“Becoming part of a team with so much heritage and prestige as the McLaren Racing family feels special,” Bird said. “We know there is some work to do ahead of Season 10, to ensure we get to where we want to be, which is at the front of the pack.
“It feels great to be part of the team and I can’t wait to kick off the season preparations, I’m super motivated and driven to deliver success with the team in 2024.”
Bird drove for Virgin through Formula E’s Gen1 era and the first two seasons of Gen2, winning nine races and finishing in the top five in the standings in all four of the Gen1 seasons. His best campaign was the 2017 season, in which he came third in the standings with two wins.
Two years ago he moved to Jaguar, and won on his second start with the team. But he was beaten by team mate Mitch Evans in the standings and the next season scored fewer than a third of the points from the year prior before missing two races with a wrist fracture.
Although he returned to form this year, the first of the Gen3 era, by taking three podiums in the space of six races, he scored at fewer than half of the races and alongside three retirements had two non-starts. He scored fewer than half of the points of team mate Evans, and a week after the season finished it was announced he had lost his seat to 2023 championship runner-up Nick Cassidy.
McLaren, Jaguar and its customer team Envision Racing now have their line-ups confirmed for 2024, while reigning champion Jake Dennis stays on at Andretti Autosport and Maserati have retained Edoardo Mortara. Six of the 11 teams are yet to officially name any drivers, less than five months before the season begins.
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Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
22nd August 2023, 16:41
I only know of him from his occasional commentary weekends on 5Live, but he seems like a decent and sensible guy.
Glad he found a seat so quick.
Dex
23rd August 2023, 11:08
When I watched a few races and semi-followed a season of FE (maybe 3 years ago or so), he seemed like one of the fastest guys there, if not the most interesting to watch at times. I’d say he’s definitely a good driver, who apparently showed some promise as a young talent back in the day (but didn’t manage to get into F1 and try his luck there). He’s definitely someone competent enough to be a commentator I say, unlike many pundits.