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Forgotten Talents: Sam Bird

Writer's picture: William StephensWilliam Stephens

Written by William Stephens, edited by Tanishka Vashee


Many amazing talents have gone through the ranks of motorsport, some made it to the highest level and shone, others however didn't make it to the top level or couldn't perform when they got there.


For the second part of the series, I will cover the career of Sam Bird and how he showed promise but never made it to the highest level. His career started in formula BMW where he finished 14th overall and second in the rookie cup. Sticking within the series for the next year he finished as the runner up and fourth in the world final.


2006 saw a move to British formula Renault where he had four wins to finish fourth. He then moved to formula 3 racing with carlin where he had very poor results in the races he did excluding the british f3 where he achieved another fourth overall finish. He also completed aerodynamic tests with williams f1. In 2008 and 2009 he had very poor results racing in formula 3 although he did get a third at the Macau Grand Prix.


He then moved to GP2 Asia series for the end of 2009/beginning of 2010 finishing seventh overall with a second in the final round. In the 2010 GP2 series he was fast but unlucky with technical failures but managed to pick up a win at Monza, he also was given the chance to take part in the young driver test for mercedes f1. Staying in GP2 for 2011 he had an amazing start to the season but trailed off to have a sixth overall finish. 2012 saw bird race in formula Renault 3.5 finishing third overall missing out by 10 points having had two wins and five podiums. Returning to GP2 in 2013 he had his best result of second overall with five wins.


2014 saw Sam Bird compete in the world endurance championship with af corsa for two races. He finished third in GTE amature at the 6 hours of Silverstone. The 24 hours of Le Mans didn't go well for the Brit being forced into retirement in the second hour after a collision with the leading lmp1 on the mulsanne straight.


In 2014 he also made the move to formula e where he is to this day being the only driver to have won a race in every season he also has a total of 11 wins and 22 podiums, yet still has not found his way to a championship with a highest finish of third. Within his time in formulae he raced for envision and jaguar having switched to the latter outfit for the 2020-21 season.


Sam Bird has shown his racing skill in many series but hasnt had the best luck to have won as much as others have in order to have gotten the success he could have achieved.


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