Bird flies through field from fifth to win first race of season in Diriyah

“I felt confident going into the race. Envision Virgin Racing gave me an amazing car. I think some of it is down to the new beard! Last year was difficult and I went through a sort of transformation involving plenty of thinking and mental stuff. It’s very special to win today. There are 23 other amazing drivers out there, so to come out on top means a lot. It’s a great start to the year, but the hard work doesn’t stop. We have another race tomorrow. There’s potential in the car so we need to maximise what we can.”

“Tomorrow we have another race and it’ll be much harder. Either way we take today as it was, which is an amazing debut for the Porsche team. We all worked very hard, we came here, and we did our best. Second place is a great way to start and boost the confidence of the team… it was awesome. I thought about having a crack at Sam [Bird] to give him payback for Hong Kong last season! We weren’t sure on how much energy we had left, so I decided to bring it home safely. I’m sure our time will come soon with a win!”

“A great start for everyone at Mercedes-Benz EQ today. It’s not easy for a new manufacturer to come into this championship and do so well in the first race. We had to put a lot of work into making sure our package was ready for this race and I wouldn’t say everything ran perfectly, but it was a very pleasing result and I think that everyone can be extremely proud. We have some more work to do. But I’m happy with the podium.”

Sam Bird	Envision Virgin Racing	26
Andre Lotterer	TAG Heuer Porsche	18
Stoffel Vandoorne	Mercedes-Benz EQ	15
Oliver Rowland	Nissan e.dams	12
Robin Frijns	Envision Virgin Racing	10
Nyck de Vries	Mercedes-Benz EQ	8
Alexander Sims	BMW i Andretti Motorsport	7
Edoardo Mortara	ROKiT Venturi Racing	6
Jerome D’Ambrosio	Mahindra Racing	2
Mitch Evans	Panasonic Jaguar Racing	2
Pascal Wehrlein	Mahindra Racing	0
Felipe Massa	ROKiT Venturi Racing	0
Lucas di Grassi	Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler	0
Antonio Felix da Costa	DS TECHEETAH	0
Oliver Turvey	NIO 333	0
James Calado	Panasonic Jaguar Racing	0
Neel Jani	TAG Heuer Porsche	0
Maximilian Guenther	BMW i Andretti Motorsport	0
Brendon Hartley	GEOX DRAGON	0
Ma Qing Hua	NIO 333	0
Sebastien Buemi	Nissan e.dams	0
Daniel Abt	Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler	0
Nico Mueller	GEOX DRAGON	0
Jean-Eric Vergne	DS TECHEETAH	0