“If we were to rerun the race, I wouldn’t have overtaken JEV,” says Virgin Racing’s Sam Bird, reflecting on a decision in Miami that may have cost him a second race win. But he believes both he and the team are in good shape ahead of the Long Beach round.

The British driver started from fourth on the grid in Miami but muscled his way into second position on the opening lap. He hassled and harried Jean-Eric Vergne, who had maintained first place from pole position. Eventually, Bird dived past the Frenchman, only to see JEV pit. Bird stayed out to complete an additional lap, something he has done several times before – and something he admits was a mistake in Miami.

“We collectively – as a team – made some decisions that were not the best, which meant that we came in at the wrong time,” he tells Current E. “Once I’d overtaken JEV, I wanted to go around again because I thought it would make it easier on the second car, but then I got round the final corner and saw my energy level was really low. I had to do a really slow in lap just to stay legal.”

While the energy figures shown on TV relate to usable energy (the 28kWh permitted in the regulation), there is more in reserve in the battery. However, breaching the 28kWh limit can incur a drive through penalty or even exclusion from the race results.

Staying out for that extra lap effectively ended Bird’s chances of a second win, and one in front of the team’s ultimate boss, Sir Richard Branson. “The pit stop time was very good; the guys did a great job, no issues there,” Bird says. “It was what it was: a bit of a muck up.”

It wasn’t simply the fog of close quarters racing that was to blame: there were technical issues, too. “There were some factors outside of my control,” Bird explains. “I had radio failure in both cars. In the second car, the radio started working again for some reason towards the end of the stint. Driving in these cars without radio to the team is quite tough. In the car, we can see what is going on with the battery, but the team can see a lot more.”

With the sixth race of the series looming, has Virgin Racing learned from Miami? Bird believes so: “We could have managed the situation better. If we were to rerun the race I wouldn’t have overtaken JEV. I would have stayed behind and conserved energy to make the extra lap a lot faster. That could have saved me 15 seconds. There will some small changes to how we work as a team in LA which will only strengthen us. That, plus a more solid strategy, means there’s no reason why we can’t score good points at Long Beach. We’re not trying to redesign the wheel. We know why we struggled but that will stay in house.”

There were positives to take from the race, too, says Bird: “We were fast. The pace was there for all to see. It was a bad day at the office, but we finished in eighth place. That’s a good thing. If we were coming in P8 and we thought that was a good day, then I’d be worried. Championship wise, we’re not even halfway through the season. There’s still plenty of time to catch up.”

Bird currently occupies third spot in the drivers’ standings; with 52 points in hand, he is just 15 points behind Nico Prost.