"You haven't seen the last me yet in a Formula E car, that's for sure."
If you thought Sam Bird had quietly slipped away from top level international motorsport you were mistaken.
Now with the Nissan Formula E team as an official reserve and development driver, Bird will attend all E-Prixs in the coming season in that guise, one that is not too unfamiliar for him.
While he may have started all bar five of the 146 Formula E races since the formation of the championship in 2014, and won 12 of them, prior to that Bird held a similar position for the Mercedes Formula 1 team across 2011 and 2012.
There Bird worked with Nico Rosberg and one of his idols Michael Schumacher. It was a formative experience and one that now he is actually relishing at another major manufacturer in Nissan.
"Of course, I want to be racing, but I've got this role now with a team that is world class and I'm excited to get my teeth stuck into this project," Bird told The Race.
"I'm not going to be sitting around and thinking ‘you know, I should really be out there' or ‘why haven't I got a race seat?'
"Hopefully I can help them push them forwards. And let's be positive about this because it's an exciting role where I get to make a difference."
This is a smart move from Nissan, which will utilise Bird's experience for the Gen4 project too when private testing kicks in from January.
Bird already knows the Nissan package of course from his two seasons with its customer team McLaren before that project closed down, so has kind of already hit the ground running with engineers at Nissan's Viry-Chatillon base this week prior to his announcement.
Bird's dignified 'racing' departure
At the London E-Prix in July, Bird's peers and competitors organised a special get together in the paddock. It was a well-meaning farewell for a genuinely liked and respected driver, but there was a whiff of awkwardness about it too.
Bird knew he was highly unlikely to get a race seat for 2026 but instead of stewing he got active, even having meetings with Nissan boss Tommaso Volpe immediately after the drivers bade their notional farewells.
"There's still plenty more that I can achieve in this sport before hanging up the helmet," said Bird.
"No one else is going to tell me when to hang up my helmet. I'll be the one to make that decision but for now I am committed to working with Nissan.
"I've spent the last three days here at the factory. Everybody's been very welcoming, and I'm enjoying getting my teeth stuck into the simulation side of things here, trying to help improve that too."
"I think I can bring a lot more to the table as an experienced driver rather than a reserve driver with no experience, that's for sure."
Bird will support champion Oliver Rowland and Norman Nato, who remain as an unchanged line-up for the season ahead.
Nato came under some pressure last season after only contributing 19 points to the team through a mixture of poorly executed race weekends that were a collective responsibility between team and driver.
That is being tackled internally with team director Dorian Boisdron telling The Race earlier this month that "it was nice to see what went well, but it's even more important to understand what went wrong too.
"We could identify that; it's a mix of different reasons. But for us, what is crystal clear is we lost the momentum in qualifying, and if you look at the tracks for the last part of the season, like Jakarta, for example, and London, if you don't qualify, well you have almost no chance."
Bird will be race ready should any unforeseen circumstances allow for him to activate his reserve role - a possibility that he is only too aware of having been on the wrong side of such misfortune in both 2022 and 2024, when he suffered hand injuries in the London and Monaco rounds respectively.
"I get on famously with both Oli and Norman and I rate them both very highly," added Bird.
"My role is to help them as much as possible. But [if I'm needed to race] for whatever unfortunate reason, I'm prepared enough, ready enough that I can step into the car, no questions asked and deliver a solid job."
