Sam Bird Gives McLaren First Formula E Win

If you can’t join ’em, beat ’em.

Sam Bird, who parted ways with Jaguar TCS after last season, overtook former teammate and 2023 race winner Mitch Evans on the final lap Saturday afternoon at São Paulo in FIA ABB Formula E championship action to give NEOM McLaren its first triumph in the 10-year-old series.

The victory on the Anhembi Sambadrome circuit in the Brazilian capital was Bird’s 12th overall in the global all-electric series and his first since the 2021 New York City race. It marked the fourth different winner in as many events this year.

With an outside maneuver on the 10th of 11 turns, Bird beat Evans to the checkered flag by 0.564 of a second. Nissan’s Oliver Rowland was third, 3.540 seconds off Bird’s pace.

“Things have come on really well quite quickly,” Bird said of his new team. “We had some goals at the beginning of the year about scoring some podiums. I would be lying to you, saying that I thought that we could definitely win a race this early. I didn’t imagine that, but we’ve managed it.

“There’s still work to be done,” he said. “There’s so many brilliant teams that any given time can be winning or scoring podiums.”

Evans said, “I was running out of power. I felt like I was in a Gen 1 car [the original, far slower version than today’s Gen 3 product] on the last lap. Even if Sam didn’t take me there [on Turn 10], he would’ve gotten me at the start-finish line. It’s good to see him back in his winning ways. We do all the right things at the right time in these crazy races to produce another win, but it wasn’t meant to be today.”

Despite a Lap 16 wall-banger that popped off a rear tire and handed him a last-place finish, Jaguar TCS’s Nick Cassidy – winner at the previous race, at Diriyah, Saudi Arabia – remains the points leader as the tour heads to a new event March 30 at Tokyo. Cassidy has a four-point edge on Pascal Wehrlein, champion at the season-opener at Mexico City. Wehrlein, of Tag Heuer Porsche, finished fourth Saturday.

Reigning series champion Jake Dennis, of the Andretti team, rounded out the top five.

After April stops at Misano, Italy, and Monaco, followed by races in May at Berlin and Shanghai, Formula E will return to Portland, Ore., for a doubleheader June 29-30. The Portland weekend will be series’ penultimate stop before it crowns its champion in London with a July 20-21 twin bill.

2024 São Paulo Formula E E-Prix Results