EXCLUSIVE: Sam Bird is “confident” ahead of the Formula E Monaco E-Prix

Sam Bird could not finish the weekend in Monaco last year because he crashed during free practice, which resulted in a hand injury. While Taylor Barnard replaced him last season, he is back and ready to win his third race in Monaco in Formula E. As he reflected on his crash, Bird told FastestFormulaNews that “it wasn’t even a bad crash” and he “won’t change [his] approach into Turn 1 at any stage.”

“It wasn’t even a bad crash, just one of those things. Unfortunately, I hit my hand, required a little bit of downtime, but I’m fine now. So, it won’t change my approach into Turn 1 at any stage.”

McLaren could “race from anywhere on the grid up towards the front”

Though his race results in Monaco “have been up and down,” Bird is determined that if they “start at the front, then [they’ve] got a good chance of staying there.” In our interview with Bird, he revealed that he “feel[s] confident” after the race they had in Miami, where he finished in P18. In his eyes, they “[could] race from anywhere on the grid up towards the front” with the McLaren.

“I’d like to win my third race in Monaco because I’ve won twice before, so that’d be nice. My Formula E results here have been up and down, but we’ve got a great car. We’ve got a super team, and I think we’ve done enough preparation here to know what to do. I feel confident, especially coming off of what, I thought, was a great race in Miami, that we can race from anywhere on the grid up towards the front. If we start at the front, then we’ve got a good chance of staying there.”

Bird’s job “is to try to score as many points as possible”

McLaren is currently third in the Formula E championship, with little distance to the teams behind them. But as he was asked, Bird claimed that “for right now, [his] job is to score as many points as [he] personally can.” With the close gap to the teams behind, Bird also stated that “when it gets to London, [he] need[s] to overtake that person to help the team win.”

“I just try and score as many points as I can. That’s always what we try and do. I mean, yeah, when it gets to London, and if there’s a couple of points in it, and it’s literally, I need to overtake that person to help the team win the team’s title, then yeah, then I’m thinking about it.”

“But for right now, my job is to score as many points as I personally can, and the same with Taylor.”