Victorious Bird thanks negative media for 'motivation'

Sam Bird thanked negative media for giving him "motivation", after sensational last-lap move on former teammate Mitch Evans saw him win the São Paulo E-Prix.

The victory marked Bird's first since the Season 7 New York E-Prix and McLaren's first in Formula E. Bird's win made him the second-oldest driver to win in the all-electric series, and moved him to just one victory away from matching the all-time record.

Bird has been through an incredible amount the last couple of seasons and has received negative media attention as a result, some of which he admits he has read. This has fueled him in showing the world that he is not done just yet.

"It's great. I've read articles, which is the worst thing in the world as a sportsman. And they hurt," Bird admitted to RacingNews365. "Some of them really hurt. You're told not to read them, and you're told it doesn't matter. It's just words.

"Let me tell you, I'm a human being. And some of these articles on some of these websites. Not very fun to read. Not very nice. Thank you for giving me the motivation to go out there and deliver. Again, I think I've proven that I haven't gone anywhere. I might have been slightly not there. But I haven't gone away."

No 'magic bullet'

Bird started the race in fifth and actually led large parts of the E-Prix, which saw a return of the peloton-style. The Briton fell behind Evans in the closing stages but overtook him on the last lap with a daring move around the outside, on the way into Turn 10.

McLaren and their parent team Nissan are certainly on the rise and are catching significant attention, although Bird believes it's too soon to label them as dark horses.

"I don't know about dark horses, but we certainly made some great strides forward,' added Bird. "And that's down to hard work from everybody in the team, every single person should really get mentioned.

And also our partnership with Nissan. We've collaborated very well, I think we've learned a lot over the first three races that we took here. And now we're gonna learn a lot from this race and move forward.

"But the Jaguar and Porsche is still extremely strong. It's not like we found a magic bullet. And all of a sudden, we're the best. That's not the case. We've had a great race today, we'll learn from this. And hopefully, we'll be fighting at the front on many more occasions this year."