Ds Virgin Racing have had a solid season so far with Sam Bird picking up one podium and a race win. However, the car has not been as competitive at every race track, and the British driver has put that down to slow speed tracks.

The team has discovered that tracks with a number of high-speed corners suit the characteristics of their cars, as they are one of the fastest teams through the high-speed sections, but in contrast they are one of the slowest teams through the slow-speed corners as Bird explains.

“The competitiveness of the car is track specific; it’s all about the minimum corner speed. If those minimum corner speeds are high, we are faster, if they are slower we go slower in comparison to the rest of the teams,” said Bird.

The first sector of the Paris ePrix track looks predominantly slow-speed corners, which caused some concern to the 29-year old, but the British driver doesn’t think this weekend will be a write-off for the team at their home race.

“The first part of the track looks really slow, but we might be competitive through the rest of the lap which will give us a good lap time. We have some strong competitors, but I think we can challenge this weekend,” said the 29-year old.

The teams have to cope without a shakedown test on Friday afternoon making tomorrow’s running critical.

“Track time will be vital tomorrow without the shakedown, but it is the same for everybody and nobody has an advantage coming into this week in terms of track time, so it should be fun tomorrow,” said Bird.