Barnard's rise has brought comfort off-track as well as on it

A lot has been made of Taylor Barnard’s rapid rise up the Formula E ranks this season. He’s secured two pole positions – joint second-most this season – and has the second-highest podium count of everyone, too.

But off-track the 21-year-old has grown, too. Entering his first full season, he was a fresh-faced, often shy figure, but as the season winds down, he’s got a noticeable air of confidence about him: someone who is able to take on the extra responsibilities of being a racing driver aside from merely driving the car.

“When I arrived, I was like, ‘whoa, there are a lot of people here’,” he said at last week’s McLaren Racing Live event in London, which attracted 40,000 fans over two days. “It is amazing to see, but it's also, I don't think many people talk about (being) the driver standing up on stage.

“It's getting better. At the beginning, I really didn't like it. I understand this is one of those things that you have to do as a driver – you have to do these things for the team, and for the brand, and for everything like that – but at the end of the day, we're racing drivers because we want to race.

“This side of things, I was always very bad in front of a camera, in front of a microphone. It was always something that I struggled with; confidence and things like that. But as I've done it more and more, I'm getting more comfortable, which is making it easier.”

Barnard was thrown into Formula E with McLaren, a major motorsport brand with a sizable media footprint as well. He credits that for helping him develop, and says had he come in with a smaller organization, he might not have been able to grow in the same way.

“I definitely feel more prepared for an interview now than what I was before,” he said. “I think it's just because of the pure amount of interviews that I've done because of NEOM McLaren and McLaren as a brand in general. There are just so many interviews that we do. If it was with another team, I wouldn't be as up to speed as what I am right now. So I'm happy about that.”

Another thing that has helped Barnard has been being paired with Sam Bird, who’s been in Formula E since the very first race, but has also had stints in the World Endurance Championship, and in Formula 1 as a test driver.

“[I’m] definitely more complete than what I was at the beginning of the season,” Barnard said. “Sam is much better at these kinds of things than I am. Of course, with the amount of experience that he has, it's kind of to be expected, but to have a teammate like Sam to learn from him and see how he approaches these kinds of things has definitely helped me a lot this year.

“I do feel quite well-prepared for these kinds of things now, but I guess it's only going to get better with time and with doing these things more often. So I would say I'm more complete, but not perfect just yet.”

Nevertheless, for four more races, Barnard is still regarded as a rookie. His stats don’t support that, of course, and he maintains that in his own mind he’s never felt like one. Netting a pole and a brace of podiums in just the third race weekend of this season – the fifth of his career after standing in for Bird in Monaco and Berlin last season – backed that thinking up even more.

“I remember saying in interviews at the start of the season that I don't feel like a rookie coming into the year,” he said. “And of course, after doing one or two, three rounds, it felt exactly like that.

“After Jeddah, I felt very seasoned, in control, comfortable, and everything was perfect. So obviously, now being more towards the end of the year, I don't feel like a rookie at all.”