DS Virgin Racing, taking the final step to the top

The partnership between DS and Virgin is launching into its second joint season. The luxury car brand DS, which is part of the PSA Peugeot Citroën automobile group, teamed up with Richard Branson’s group during the 2015 off-season. As from the beginning of the venture, the team will be led by the short-lived Team Principal of the Virgin Racing adventure in Formula 1, Alex Tai. He had, in fact, held the position for only a single month before handing over to John Booth.

During the first season, the team, at the time solely owned by Virgin, achieved a podium in Beijing; as well as two victories: in Putrajaya and during the second race in London, each time through Sam Bird. This ultimately resulted in a fifth place in the constructors’ standings with 133 points.

For season two, the team made progress with four podiums: two by Jean-Eric Vergne in Paris and London (race 1), and two for Sam Bird, with a second place in Putrajaya, but most notably a victory achieved in Buenos Aires after a relentless battle against Sébastien Buemi. At the end of the season, a third place in the team standings awaited the men of the brand with the chevron, with 146 points.

The progress has been remarkable: better yet, if it hadn’t experienced repetitive consumption issues, the single-seater would certainly have been much closer to the two leading teams.

Let us wager that these issues will have been resolved in the second iteration of the DS-Virgin duo. Named the “DSV-02”, it is equipped with a new propulsion system and a gearbox now spread over three gears. The previous model was only mounted on a single gear. In any case, there is no doubt that this car will be competitive. PSA’s department firmly believes in victory in this discipline, just as Citroën recently achieved so well in WRC and WTCC, as well as Peugeot, on Pikes Peak and the Dakar. The financial and human resources are likely to be even more substantial, if we are to believe the group’s strategy, which ends its commitment in WTCC at the end of this year, 2016.

In the meantime, the new Formula E livery was unveiled to the public at the end of this September in a vibrant video:

Will Sam Bird still be an essential part of Formula E?

For his first campaign, the 29-year-old Briton stepped onto the podium in Beijing for the very first race of the championship and secured two victories, in Putrajaya and at the finish of race 2 in London, following the disqualification of Stéphane Sarrazin. He finished fifth in the driver standings with 103 points.

For the second season, he re-signed with DS Virgin, the manufacturer from the PSA group joining Virgin.

Result: a new podium in Putrajaya and a victory in Buenos Aires for a fourth place in the final championship, with 88 points. A certainly frustrating season for the former Mercedes test driver, as he had managed to start three times from the first place on the grid: in Buenos Aires, Long Beach, and Paris.

Before Formula E, Sam Bird went through F3, GP2, and WEC where he still races today. He is also the 2015 WEC LMP2 world champion. This season he became a factory driver for Ferrari in GT Pro. He is, therefore, a heavyweight in the championship who has shown great consistency, outperforming his teammates in his first seasons. If his team resolves its consumption issues, he will surely be able to contend for the drivers’ championship crown!

José Maria Lopez, the curiosity of the start of the season!

Rookie like four other drivers on this grid, “Pechito” as he is nicknamed, arrives crowned with three consecutive WTCC (World Touring Car Championship) titles: he won the Drivers World Championship in 2014, 2015, and 2016. Before that, the 33-year-old Argentine began his career in single-seaters, in F3 and GP2 Series, where he participated in the 2005 season (with the French team DAMS) and 2006. He almost raced in F1, but the USF1 project at the beginning of 2010 stopped before even getting on the track! After this disappointment, he decided to return to Touring Car racing in Argentina. In 2014, he joined Citroën for the seasons we mentioned earlier. Lopez will leave the WTCC on November 25 after the last race of the season in Losail.

His arrival in Formula E is highly anticipated, after seasons of domination against drivers like Sébastien Loeb, Yvan Muller, and Tiago Monteiro. The task will be challenging against Sam Bird, who has been in Formula E since its inception.