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Bird: “There’s some catching up to do”

Sam Bird comes to Italy still in the fight for the title, with the DS Virgin driver aiming to pick up the pace ahead of the Rome ePrix.

Sitting third in the championship with a victory in the season-opening Hong Kong E-Prix, the Englishman is keeping his cards close to his chest as he enters the second half of the season and isn’t laying down any solid expectations for this weekend.

On a scale of one to ten what do you think are your chances of winning this race?

“Wow, honestly I don’t know. I’d be like fairly neutral. I can’t say zero because I think there is a possibility because I’ve won a race every year. Ten is like ‘well, I’m going to win this certainly!’ So, I think five is a possibility, anything can happen. It’s very difficult but we’ve been there or thereabouts with the pace, so yeah, a solid five!”

You’ve seen the track, how confident do you feel with the layout?

“Well, firstly the track is amazing. I’m very excited to drive it. Whether I’m confident or not, I mean it doesn’t really matter. I will enjoy it. I think the track looks super, I just need to do a great job in qualifying and from there, who knows?”

Now that we’re halfway through the season, how do you feel? You’ve had some pretty good races so far.

“Yeah, it’s ticking on nicely, I’ve built a nice foundation and now I need to crack on a little bit, there’s some catching up to do, but you know, we’ve had a no points score in Mexico and JEV hasn’t had that yet. When he does or if he does, I need to be there to capitalise but now would be a good time to start catching a couple of points back, whether or not I could do that remains to be seen.”

About Noor Amylia Hilda
Noor Amylia Hilda is a journalist based in Kuala Lumpur with bylines in titles such as Women's Health, Esquire and ELLE. She is also a freelance motorsport journalist covering the FIA Formula E championship and Formula 1.