Why Bird at Jaguar will help the team fly in Formula E

In deference to Lewis Hamilton's staggering Styrian Grand Prix pole lap that put him 1.2 seconds clear of Max Verstappen, former Formula 1 driver Mark Webber tweeted: "There's a[n] F1 category, and then there's a[n] F1 PLUS category".

If - for simplicity's sake - you consider the 20 drivers in F1 to be the 20 best in the world, even within that pool there's still an upper echelon of talent, a 'PLUS' tier reserved for the likes of Hamilton, Verstappen and Charles Leclerc.

Apply that same notion across to Formula E and out of the 24 drivers, it's double champion Jean-Eric Vergne, current points leader Antonio Felix da Costa, second in the standings Mitch Evans, Maximilian Guenther and Sam Bird who are, at present, the pick of the crop. Only, Bird is currently just 10th in the standings and so the Briton looks set to miss out on the title spoils once more.

Thanks to his triumph in the opening race of the season in Saudi Arabia, nine-time E-Prix winner Bird remains the only person to score a victory in every FE season to date. He's also in the limited company of 2016-17 champion Lucas di Grassi and Daniel Abt as being the only drivers to start every one of 63 races in the championship's relatively brief history.

Aged 33, Bird still has multiple top-flight seasons ahead of him - competitive rivals Andre Lotterer and di Grassi are 38 and 35 respectively. But right now, he is operating at the peak of his powers and needs to find his way into a top seat before long if he is indeed to win the FE crown. Third in 2017-18, as former team-mate Vergne clinched the title spoils after departing to lead the Techeetah assault, remains his best finish so far.

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It's why Bird will leave his effective second home at Virgin Racing to sign for Jaguar as of next season. He will bid farewell to a team for which he has contested every race through its DS and Envision guises - a team that loves him as much as he loves it - and come to replace Ferrari World Endurance Championship GTE class team-mate James Calado.

In the announcement that Bird will leave Virgin by mutual consent at the end of the season, the team's managing director Sylvain Filippi said: "I know I speak for the entire team when I say Sam is one of the most likeable and decorated drivers in Formula E and, come mid-August, will leave us with the utmost respect and admiration.

"Being a founding member of this team like myself, I personally want to pay tribute to Sam for the excellent job he has done and for being a pleasure to work with over the years. Ever the professional, he remains just as committed and determined to end the season with Envision Virgin Racing on a high."

This is a separation of ways that comes on the best possible terms for both team and driver, given what they have achieved together.

Bird added: "Over the years, this team has become more like a family to me and has been a huge part of my racing career.

With its FE programme, Jaguar finds itself on an upwards trajectory. The opposite is true of Envision Virgin Racing. Running an Audi customer powertrain, it remains at the mercy of its donor's technology

"Many will know that the team and Formula E resurrected my racing career and for that I am eternally grateful. I have so many memories and highlights - both on and off track - to look back on and I really hope there's still a few more to come in Berlin before I embark on the next chapter of my racing career.

"And for sure, there is likely to be a tear in my eye come that final race."

When the tears are wiped away, as Bird comes to partner Evans once the six August races at the Tempelhof Airport in Berlin have concluded the elongated current campaign, Jaguar can lay claim to one of the strongest pairings on the grid. And that potent Evans-Bird line-up look set to do battle in the second fastest car.

When Jaguar entered FE, the opportunity to join came late in the day and so the first iteration of the electric I-Type faced a rushed development. That manifested itself with the team propping up the table of its maiden 2016-17 campaign, before climbing to sixth the season after and suffering a small slip to seventh the season after that.

But now there's been a mighty leap in form, with the current DS Techeetah machine the only package that's demonstrably faster. Although Jaguar sits third at present behind BMW Andretti also, that's largely down to Evans having to do the heavy lifting. His tally of 56 points after five races plays Calado's haul of 10.

In the Santiago E-Prix, Evans led comfortably by following a pre-mediated strategy to use both of the higher-power attack mode boosts early on. But a software glitch sapped his pace, with the Kiwi eventually falling to fourth on the road - but he did inherit a podium finish after Mercedes driver Nyck de Vries was penalised for an over-cooled battery.

The team arrived for the following race in Mexico City with the glitch addressed, and there Evans was even more domineering. He crossed the line some 4.2 seconds clear of da Costa to claim his second FE triumph, but he had been a massive 7s to the good with a handful of laps to run.

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This current form, against the backdrop of seemingly ever-present scrutiny over Jaguar Land Rover's finances - cutting 4500 jobs and killing the I-PACE eTrophy support series a year before its agreed contract term - means its FE work offers a shot in the arm.

Understandably given the patchy economics, the marque's commitment to the series had been called into question. But the signing of Bird shows that even if Jaguar will quit FE in several seasons' time, before then it has very serious designs on winning the constructors' title in its first major motorsport programme - not including the factory blessing given to the Rocketsports XKR GT2 that competed in the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2010 - since its early 2000s foray into F1.

With its FE programme, Jaguar finds itself on an upwards trajectory. The opposite is true of Envision Virgin Racing. Running an Audi customer powertrain, it remains at the mercy of its donor's technology. But Audi (sixth in the standings), and by extension, Virgin Racing (seventh), has slipped down the order.

For Bird to win the championship crown he so desperately covets, Jaguar offers the superior prospects should its form carry over to next season. That realistic outcome would be the ultimate reward for the personal pain that will come with leaving Envision Virgin Racing.

As Bird said: "I have watched Jaguar's growth and progress in the series... I am incredibly hungry for success and I believe that together with Mitch we can achieve great things for the team and ourselves."

The move should also offer Jaguar some overdue stability with its driver line-up. Evans has been with the team since its FE debut, and has grown from an accomplished 2012 champion of GP3 and GP2 race winner into one of the very fastest operators - part of that 'PLUS' tier.

On the other side of the garage, consistency has been harder to come by. In its four seasons in FE, Jaguar has called upon four different drivers - including inaugural series champion Nelson Piquet Jr - to occupy the second car.

The signing of Bird should rein in this frequent chopping and changing, while giving Jaguar a pair of drivers that's eminently capable of delivering the teams' title.

"With Mitch and Sam, we believe that we have arguably one of the strongest driver line-ups on the grid," added Jaguar team director James Barclay.

"I have watched Jaguar's growth and progress in the series... I am incredibly hungry for success and I believe that together with Mitch we can achieve great things for the team and ourselves" Sam Bird

"With extremely close competition it is clear that to be successful in Formula E you need two drivers who can be competing for podiums at every race. We now have two proven race winners that are capable of enabling us to challenge for both team and driver championship titles next season."

Incidentally, the revolving door at Jaguar might have been closed far sooner as the team had courted Bird's services back in 2016, but the two parties failed to agree terms.

Understandably given his performances, Evans is the current posterchild for Jaguar's FE success. How Bird will come to integrate into the team, with the potential to upset the applecart, offers a fascinating potential plot. There's little chance of either Bird or Evans settling into a de facto 'number two' driver slot here.

But should harmony prevail, teaming Bird up with Evans is a combination that has huge potential to both excite fans and achieve great things for Jaguar.