DS Virgin Racing have announced that Alex Lynn and Sam Bird will be the two full season drivers for the upcoming 4th season of the FIA Formula E Championship, starting on December 2 in Hong Kong.
Lynn was reserve driver at the team through Season 3, and replaced Jose Maria Lopez in New York, when the Argentinian driver had to drive in the FIA WEC for Toyota Gazoo Racing on that weekend.
The 23 year old racing driver from Great Britain surprised everybody by taking Pole Position in his very first start and ran upfront for a lot of the race.
Combined with Bird, who is starting his fourth season with the team, they will most likely give the rest of the pack a good run for their money in the Teams Championship.
Alex Lynn currently runs the FIA WEC for G-Drive Racing, where he shows time after time, that he is also among the fastest sportscar drivers. There will be opportunity to participate in both series again in 2018, since there will be no date clashes, opposite to the 2017 seasons overlapping.
Lynn has also been participating for BMW at selected endurance races at the Nordschleife through 2017-
Sam Bird is a works driver at Ferrari, and just like Lynn, participates in the FIA WEC, where he runs for AF Corse in the GTE Pro category.
The team will say goodbye to Jose Maria Lopez, who had his difficulties, especially in the first half of the season. The Argentinian managed to score a second and a third place, while teammate Bird had two victories combined with a second and a third. That cost the team vital points in the Teams Championship – points that they hopefully won’t be missing out on in the 2017/18 season.
By this announcement, 4 of the 10 teams have announced their full driver line-ups. It will be interesting to follow the rest of the teams naming their drivers in the coming weeks.