Bird admits full responsibility after hitting teammate Evans again

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Bird admits full responsibility after hitting teammate Evans again

It was another challenging day at the office for Jaguar TCS Racing, as for the second time this season, their two drivers came together. Sam Bird managed to tap the rear of Mitch Evans' car, sending the championship contender into a spin and into the barriers, eventually forcing him to retire.

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The incident, which occurred towards the end of Saturday's Gulavit Jakarta E-Prix, saw the team miss out on more vital championship points. Bird admitted responsibility for the clash and apologised on the team radio and personally afterwards. 

It's the second time the Brit has broken the golden rule of racing - never hit your teammate - as he made the same mistake in Hyderabad when misjudging his entry into ATTACK MODE earlier this year. This time, Bird was in ATTACK MODE when an error resulted in him hitting the back of Evans' car with three laps to go. 

Evans was in eighth at the time, having started 11th, and had done a solid job climbing up the field in the hot and humid conditions. He confessed that eighth was the best he could have managed today if he'd kept the position until the chequered flag. 

In a quote from the Jaguar team after Round 10, Bird said he took "full responsibility for the incident on track". 

"I want to apologise to the team for the mistake. We had a difficult qualifying and race, and unfortunately, so far this weekend, the car hasn't been performing at the level we would hope. We'll regroup tonight and come back stronger tomorrow." 

Bird was given a five-second time penalty for the collision with his teammate, plus two more penalty points taking his total up to seven for the last 12 months. If a driver reaches 12 of these penalty points in a year, they will receive a one-race ban. 

Jaguar Team Principal James Barclay added: "It's not the ideal end to the race. We'll manage that here internally. We didn't quite have the pace of the lead group, and we found it challenging today across most sessions to get the car into an optimal window. Putting both cars into the points was our goal for the race today; we had achieved that before the incident occurred. Days like these are hard for everyone, but we will unite as a team. We learned a lot from the race, and it's important to now reset and get ready for another E-Prix tomorrow." 

Bird's race also took a turn, as he was spun around by the NEOM McLaren of Rene Rast moments after his contact with Evans. Rast was subsequently given a five-second penalty and two penalty points for his part in the accident. However, Bird still classified last.