“Sims deserves his chance”

T

he news that Alexander Sims will be part of BMW’S big Formula E assault for the 2018/2019 season is great on many levels. Sims is a fine and underrated driver, whose single-seater career ended too soon.

He lost the 2008 Formula Renault UK title to Adam Christodoulou, but beat his rival (and four others) to win the Mclaren Autosport BRDC Award at the end of the year.

Sims then became one of the top F3 drivers over the next couple of years, winning in the Euro Series and British F3, but coming up against ART team-mate Valtteri Bottas hurt his career momentum, despite the fact he finished just behind the future F1 winner in the 2010 Euro F3 standings.

A mixed GP3 campaign with Status the following year didn’t help either, even though he was again a race winner. Backing dried up, though he was still highly regarded enough to become a supersub in F3 and GP3.

Sims took a GP3 win on a rare outing with Carlin as late as 2013 and was third in the ’15 Macau GP with Double R. In between, he helped Marco Attard to the British GT title, only missing out on sharing the crown because he had to skip the Snetterton round.

Fortunately, Sims was too good to be ignored and BMW picked him up. In 2016 he won the Spa 24 Hours in an M6 GT3, then became a key part of BMW’S American GT assault last year.

This season he has shared a Team RLL BMW M8 GTE in the GTLM works battlefield of the IMSA Sportscar Championship with Connor De Phillippi. They’ve won the last two rounds and BMW has now put Sims alongside Antonio Felix da Costa for its first major assault on FE.

It’s a good choice because Sims is also already heavily into the electric vehicle scene and has a genuine interest in technology. Don’t mistake that for a lack of ‘old-school’ motorsport passion: he also loved (and was quick in) a one-off Formula 5000 test at Silverstone when he was in F3.

Sims is intelligent and adaptable. One of the test cars for the 2008 Mclaren Autosport BRDC Award was an Aston Martin Vantage GT4, which had various driver aids. The other five finalists were mainly concerned with its limitations and how the gadgets got in the way. But Sims took the approach of trying to work out how the gizmos could be made to work for him.

Given the challenges of Formula E, it’s foolish to push expectations too high for any rookie, but the arrival of the new Gen2 car potentially levels the playing field a little and Sims deserves his chance.

He has all the ingredients to be highly successful.

Bushell will remain in BTCC with Team Hard after returning this year