The beleaguered Sam Bird was left ruing another no rating regardless of having an usually strong Portland E-Prix, as he heads into what might be the last races of his three-season stint as a Jaguar Formula E driver.
A 5th successive non-score for Bird felt especially bruising provided he had actually entered an appealing position to sign up with the leading trio of ultimate winner Nick Cassidy, Jake Dennis and Antonio Felix da Costa as the race entered its last laps.
Bird had an especially amazing run in a strange race that took this season’s severe energy-saving ‘peloton’ loads to brand-new heights, with drivers adding to 5 abreast and attempting not to lead or perhaps to utilize complete throttle as they saved energy for a last sprint at a track that used hardly any opportunities to lift-and-coast.
Starting from a lowly 15th on the grid, Bird dropped to 20th and last on lap 17 of the ultimate 32 prior to blasting approximately 3rd 2 laps later on. It was certainly the most significant position swing in Formula E history over such a range.
“I genuinely think I could have got a podium today but unfortunately it’s just one of those things, one of these races that is difficult to really understand at the end,” a plainly disappointed Bird informed The Race.
“I was kind of surrounded by the wrong people at the wrong time which stopped my progress.”
Bird’s team-mate Mitch Evans keeps a title possibility, having actually come through from the back of the grid to 4th at Portland, though he’s now 32 points behind leader Jake Dennis with simply the Rome and London double-headers to go. Bird is a far-off ninth in the champion.
The require to secure Evans resulted in some lively radio traffic in between Bird and Jaguar engineer Phil Ingham in the closing phases at Portland, especially as soon as Sebastien Buemi got in between them.
Bird’s radio exchange
Sam Bird: Tell him to go, man. Either I’m going or he’s going. Come on.
Phil Ingram: Yeah, move forward with Mitch. Look after him.
SB: I’ve got more rate than him!
SB: Because I was protecting from Mitch I get done by Seb. Thanks, people!
Then while defending 5th position in the closing laps Bird encountered Max Guenther’s Maserati at the very first turn complex. Despite Bird insisting it was a racing occurrence and no more, the stewards thought otherwise and dispensed a five-second charge which dropped him from a seventh positioned surface to outside the points in 17th.
That choice left Bird fuming.
“The penalty, oh my God the penalty,” he said.
“But then he’s done precisely the exact same to me the next lap, and he’s completed in front of me and I get the charge and 2 charge points.
“We’re speaking about [racing] versus a man that will simply defend his life and simply continue driving around the outdoors and after that it appears like I’ve driven him off.
“Sorry, but he wasn’t going anywhere but off the track [anyway], so, I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
Bird deals with the possibility of being changed at Jaguar by Portland winner Nick Cassidy for next season, and feels his 2023 campaign has actually been soured by duplicated poor luck when in strong positions.
“It’s like, what more can go wrong this year?” he questioned.
“I don’t understand what I’ve done, whether I’ve stepped on a load of black cats, broken a load of mirrors, crossed the roadway the incorrect method. I simply don’t understand what I require to do to break it.
“I thought it was an OK race, to come seventh, and even that I was annoyed with because I felt like I could have come a lot higher up but I had to play carefully.”
As well as his 2 crashes with team-mate Evans in Hyderabad and Jakarta, Bird has actually suffered more than his reasonable share of misery – with a non-start at Cape Town after a shambolic warning treatment activated a crash, and another non-start in the 2nd Jakarta race when a powertrain problem triggered by an outsourced element failure.
With existing Envision driver Cassidy looking primed to take Bird’s seat in 2024, among Formula E’s most knowledgeable and embellished drivers is dealing with the possibility of searching for what would just be his 3rd group in ten years in the series if he wishes to continue his FE profession.
Avalanche Andretti and Mahindra currently seem the most likely paths for Bird to discover a berth needs to he not be maintained by Jaguar.
