Sam Bird Triumphs In Formula E Opener
HONG KONG – Sam Bird kicked off the Formula E season with a victory on Saturday during the Hong Kong ePrix on the Harbourfront circuit.
Drama started on the first lap, with a multi-car incident at the back of the pack causing the first red flag in Formula E history. Bird restarted second and pressured race leader Jean Eric-Vergne. Bird made his move near halfway, taking the lead from Vergne on the inside going into the turn six hairpin.
Vergne would pit on the next lap for the required car change, with Bird following one lap later. Bird’s stop went awry and an issue caused a lengthy car swap. To make matters worse, he was handed a drive-through penalty for not changing cars inside the garage area.
After serving his penalty a few laps later Bird shockingly emerged in the race lead after Vergne was held up while battling Nick Heidfeld. Bird controlled the rest of the race, driving to a more than 11 second victory.
“What a race. We came into this season knowing we had a good car but also knew there was a lot of strong competition, so certainly didn’t expect to win straight out of the blocks,” said Bird. “When I knew I had my drive-through [penalty] I tried to push as hard as I could and was expecting to come out in P8 or P9 so was surprised when my engineer told me I was P1. It’s a great way to start the season and my thanks goes to everyone at the DS Virgin Racing team.”
Following a post-race decision by the stewards, Bird will have a 10-place grid penalty applied for Sunday’s round two for the infringement in the pit lane.
Vergne finished second, followed by Heidfeld, Nelson Piquet Jr. and Daniel Abt.
The finish:
Sam Bird, Jean-Eric Vergne, Nick Heidfeld, Nelson Piquet Jr., Daniel Abt, Antonio Felix Da Costa, Edoardo Mortara, Alex Lynn, Nico Prost, Luca Filippi, Sebastien Buemi, Mitch Evans, Maro Engel, Felix Rosenqvist, Kamui Kobayashi, Andre Lotterer, Oliver Turvey, Lucas di Grassi, Neel Jani, Jerome D’Ambrosio.
Source : speedsport.com
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