Sam Bird and Jaime Alguersuari will drive for the Virgin Racing Formula E team in the sport’s maiden season.
Barcelona-born Alguersuari is a former British F3 International Series champion and notched up two top 10 finishes in a brief stint in F1, where he raced for Red Bull feeder team Toro Rosso. He’s spent the past two years as a test driver for F1 tyre supplier Pirelli.
British driver Sam Bird (pictured above) has raced for ART in GP2, the team behind Spark, which is making the Formula E racing cars. He was test driver for the Mercedes F1 team in 2012.
Bird and Alguersuari are only the third and fourth drivers to be announced for the first Formula E season. They join already-confirmed Daniel Abt and Lucas di Grassi, who will be in the hot seats at the Audi Sport ABT team. All four had joined the Formula E driver programme, making that four from four so far for the “drivers’ club”.
The maiden Formula E series starts on 13 September in Beijing, with a compressed format that squeezes practice, qualifying and the race all into a single day. Preseason testing is strictly controlled, with only a handful of days over the summer permitted for teams and drivers to learn about the racing car, which has been built and supplied to the teams by Spark. The car itself, the Spark-Renault, has undergone extensive testing in the past few months and has covered a distance equivalent to more than three full race seasons, with no reported problems.
Image courtesy of Virgin.
Team owner Richard Branson commented: “Jaime and Sam are young yet experienced drivers and fantastic guys off the racetrack to boot. I’m delighted to welcome them both to the Virgin Racing family. Jamie has demonstrated speed and talent at the very highest level whilst Sam is a proven race winner. I am sure they will be a formidable force on the circuits, let sparks fly!”
