The 2019/20 Formula E season finale week in Berlin last month marked the end of an era in the series’ driver line-up, as one of its last constants came to an end.
Sam Bird bowed out of the Envision Virgin Racing team with a fifth place in the final round.
While its name has changed several times, the roots of that team have remained largely the same.
Bird is one of only four drivers to have competed in every single Formula E race (in addition to Lucas di Grassi, Daniel Abt and Jerome d’Ambrosio) since the formation of the championship in 2014, and was one of only three left on the grid who’d never moved teams (along with Abt/Audi man di Grassi and Sebastien Buemi – an ever-present at Renault/Nissan bar his sportscar clashes).
Though his Formula E success is well-documented – nine wins and a best of third in the championship in 2017/18 – few realise that before securing the Virgin FE deal Bird was within days of ending his racing career at the end of 2013, aged 26, and becoming a personal trainer!
“I was coming off the back of being the vice-champion of GP2 in 2013 which, whilst it doesn’t guarantee you a slot in Formula 1, would normally put you in a good window, especially when you’ve won five races in a year with a brand new team [Russian Time],” Bird tells The Race.
“I was on the books of Mercedes F1, and you’re thinking at that point there’s a shot here at Formula 1 surely, surely there’s a shot, but there wasn’t one for me.
“So then I got let go by Mercedes, and I had nothing, I mean nothing – not a GT seat, just nothing there. I’ve got naff-all, I mean it’s dead, the dream is gone, it’s done, there’s no money.”
At that point, Bird told his parents he planned to go to night school to get a physical-education degree to change his professional outlook.
“I was really thinking I’m going to have to do that, because clearly the racing thing, it’s not happening for me,” he remembers.
“Then I got a phone call from [then team principal] Alex Tai about Formula E, and I was like ‘oh yeah, I’ll come to a meeting of course’, but I didn’t really know much and I wasn’t confident about it at all.
“I’d heard of Formula E whilst I was doing GP2, and I knew it was slowly gaining a little bit of momentum, but nobody really thought it could be a big success; maybe it could be like A1GP for a year or two and then it would burn out.
“So I went to the meeting and I got the drive.
“A couple of months down the line we’re all turning up at Donington for the reveal of the car.”
It was the start of a career resurgence for Bird and he didn’t even contemplate glancing back.
Nine victories on and 70 races completed, we grade Bird’s five greatest FE victories as he heads for his new chapter at Jaguar.
5. Diriyah Race 1, 2019
Bird’s victory in Riyadh last November was achieved five years to the day since his first FE win at Putrajaya, but while that was a clinical drive where he was never headed, this one was hard-earned.
Placing fifth for the first phase of the race, Bird’s Envision Virgin Audi lurked in the shadows initially before pouncing to despatch both Mercedes, a BMW and a Porsche.
Bird looked sharp and lean, but he’d also thought deeply in the off-season and seemed completely unbeatable on the day. It immediately ensured he became the only driver to win a race in each of Formula E’s six seasons to date.
4. Putrajaya, 2014
Complete control from lights out to chequered flag is a rare thing in Formula E, but in only the championship’s second-ever race Bird achieved it.
Back in 2014 Virgin Racing was a happy band of contracted staff, some from the Lotus F1 team and others pulled together from junior series. It all gelled in the stultifying humidity of central Malaysia.
Bird waltzed past unlikely pole-sitter Oriol Servia and stretched out a lead that he was never to lose.
It was the first real look at how a driver could maximise performance through energy efficiency, and while others on the grid were still learning, Bird made them all look a little forlorn.
3. New York City Race 2, 2017
Twenty-four hours on from becoming the first man to do it ‘his way’ and win in the Big Apple, Bird nonchalantly took pole for the second race.
Despite losing out to a fired-up Felix Rosenqvist at the first corner, he bided his time and despatched the Swede easily.
Clever tactics under a full course yellow ensured that the DS Virgin team matched Bird’s savvy on the track and an energy rich purple and silver machine emerged with an extended lead after the pitstops.
He took the flag 11s ahead of a dispirited pack, punched the air, kissed his shiny pot and headed out to Manhattan as the undisputed king of New York.
2. Hong Kong Race 1, 2017
Bird and Jean-Eric Vergne had not had a positive shared experience as team-mates at DS Virgin in the second season of Formula E in 2015/16, and some of that needle had lingered.
But by the start of the fourth season in 2017, the animosity had turned to something approaching healthy respect and for the first 20 laps of the first race in this double-header in Hong Kong, it showed.
Lap after lap Bird tailed polesitter Vergne diligently, but on the 21st of the 43 laps Bird surprised his former nemesis with a piece of opportune brilliance at the Turn 7 chicane.
Bird led into the pitstops a lap later but disaster struck when he locked up on the dusty pit apron and scattered engineers and TV cameramen as he did so.
The subsequent rap from the stewards led to a drive-through penalty but using the shorter ‘by-pass pitlane’ Bird retained the lead and kept it to the chequered flag.
Bird had handled the drama superbly and let it wash over him before pulling a mighty 11s lead out to seal a dominant victory carved from a truly brilliant overtaking manoeuvre.
1. Buenos Aires, 2016
Perhaps in the top five greatest Formula E races ever, Bird’s masterpiece at the Buenos Aires E-Prix in February 2016 was just plain special.
Much more a freestyle breakdance than a tango, Bird somehow fought off a charging Buemi to take an unlikely hard-fought victory.
Buemi started from the rear of the field after looping it in qualifying. He undoubtedly had a car advantage over the rest at this point, as evidenced in the season opener at Beijing where he had trounced the opposition.
The nimble Renault was the polar opposite to the portly twin-MGU DS designed powertrain Bird was using, and it showed.
DS Virgin had tanked in the opening round but a mountain of work on set-up had found a sweet-ish spot in the baking confines of Puerto Madero.
Buemi carved through the field and by the time he’d taken his second car at the then mandatory pitstop, he was up into an astounding fourth place.
Bird, with one eye on his mirrors, was merely waiting for the inevitable and soon it came in the shape of a vivid blue and yellow wave on his tail.
In a masterclass of defensive driving, Bird placed his car in all the right spots at all the right times. Despite intense pressure from a fired-up, Buemi he remained resolute.
After the chequered flag a drained Bird lauded his team, but in turn it, and indeed the whole paddock, did the same right back at him.
It was a brilliantly obstinate performance to secure DS Performance’s first of 12 victories, but without Bird on that day it would have had to wait much longer.
