Sam Bird sets Daytona Record on sports car debut

It was a weekend of firsts for Sam as he took part in the collective Tudor United Sports Car Championship test at Daytona, after the Briton was signed up by Starworks Motorsport last month to race for them in this season’s endurance races (Daytona, Sebring, Petit Le Mans). First time racing in the United States; first time driving a prototype sports car.

However Bird took to the new discipline like a duck to water, ending up fastest in class in both the day and night sessions and setting a new Daytona LMPC lap record in a time of 1:42.010.

“This has been a productive first contact for me with endurance racing. The transition from single-seaters has been very natural, which is good news as I am planning to pursue careers in sports cars and single-seaters concurrently”, said Sam. "The team have made me feel at home right away and I want to thank Peter Baron and everyone at Starworks Motorsport for that.

The fact that we have topped the time sheets is encouraging but of course there is more to come and I fully appreciate that the name of the game here is race-long consistency. With the other drivers and the Starworks team, this is already feeling like a pretty tightly-knit unit and I'm looking forward to joining up with them again for the race here at the end of the month”.

Sam Bird

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