Sam Bird heaped praise on NEOM McLaren powertrain partner Nissan after securing the brand’s first victory in Formula E’s GEN3 era in Sao Paulo.
The win was also Bird’s first of the current generation of car – which was introduced last year – and McLaren’s maiden one in the category. But while he was quick to point out the hard work McLaren and Nissan have done to bridge the gap to the class-leading Jaguar and Porsche powertrains, he admitted there’s still work to do.
“I feel like we’ve really worked well with [Nissan] and things have come on really well quite quickly. We’re not where we want to be yet but we’re definitely making some progress,” he said. “It is a huge boost, but there’s still work to be done. Jag, Porsche, Andretti, Envision, DS, Maserati, Nissan, there’s so many other brilliant teams that at any given time can be winning or scoring podiums so we need to learn from this, understand why it was really good, understand what we did well, what we did badly, and then try and score some more good points in Tokyo.”
Nissan has often been strong in qualifying trim, but less so in races during the GEN3 era. The race in Brazil featured two safety car periods, but factory driver Oliver Rowland, who also finished on the podium, downplayed their significance for the Japanese manufacturer, saying they “didn’t make much difference to our actual targets,” and, like Bird, highlighted the off-track work both teams have been doing to move forwards. He also fired a warning that Nissan are anticipating a big step forward next season when the hardware homologation cycle reset.
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“Honestly, the team are working super-hard. I think you saw last year that they had potential in a lot of races but never quite capitalized on it,” said Rowland. “I think the team has solidified its place, both McLaren and Nissan work well together and we’re able to put together a package and keep chipping away at the top guys.
“We still know that we have some limitations that we can’t really fix until next year but if we can learn to be perfect this year, when we get hopefully what’s coming next year, we can be in a really strong place.”
For Bird, the Sao Paulo E-Prix was a huge personal weight off his shoulders. Winless in the last two seasons for the first time, his victory in Brazil ended the drought and brought him within one victory of Sebastien Buemi and Lucas di Grassi’s all-time Formula E wins record of 13.
“I think this one is one of the more special because of what I’ve had to go through to get back [to winning], so yeah, this one definitely feels very special,” he said. “Also the fact that it’s the first one for NEOM McLaren.
“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. It would have been a dream, but I didn’t imagine that, but we’ve managed it. That doesn’t mean to say that we’ve made it and we need to rest, there’s still a lot of work to do, but to score our first win feels very special.”