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Jaguar TCS Racing's Sam Bird will have a five-place grid penalty for today's Cape Town E-Prix, after his involvement in an incident during the Hyderabad E-Prix earlier this month.
Bird brought an end to both his race and that of Mitch Evans, his Jaguar teammate. Misjudging his entry into ATTACK MODE, Bird entered the hairpin turn with too much speed and hit the back of Evans' car, sending them both spinning off the street circuit. The incident also caught out the Maserati MSG Racing of Maximilian Guenther and Nissan's Sacha Fenestraz, who were trapped by the two Jaguar cars and had nowhere to go.
As a result, Bird will be serving a five-place grid drop here in Cape Town, South Africa. He also picked up two penalty points, bringing his total to five points for the last 12 months.
So far in Cape Town, the Jaguar powertrain has looked strong, with Jaguar customer, Envision Racing, topping the timesheets in Free Practice 2 with Nick Cassidy. Evans and Bird also finished FP2 in fourth and fifth, respectively.
Since the incident, Bird has been very apologetic, even taking to Instagram to share an apology to the Jaguar team, Evans and all those impacted by his mistake.
Rene Rast (NEOM McLaren) was also slapped with a penalty - a three-spot grid drop - for his part in a shunt following the Safety Car in Hyderabad that saw his car climb all over the Avalanche Andretti of Jake Dennis - removing the Brit from a provisional podium position.