For the past four years, Sebastien Bourdais was the king of Champ Car racing.
Driving for the powerful Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing team, Bourdais dominated the now-defunct American open-wheel series like it had never been dominated before, winning 28 of 55 races on the way to an unprecedented four consecutive series championships. Now, the 29-year-old Frenchman is spending his time at or near the rear of the Formula One grid racing for Scuderia Toro Rosso.
Last weekend at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Bourdais hit the wall in practice, broke his gearbox and had to start from the rear of the field in Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix. He spun in the race and finished a lap behind the leaders in 13th place.
And that was his second-best result of the season.
“It’s quite different, obviously,” Bourdais said before getting on the track last weekend. “We moved and we don’t contend for wins any more. But it’s been quite enjoyable. A lot of things to discover and reset, but so far, so good.”
Until Sunday, Bourdais had failed to finish four of his last five starts and had only a 15th-place finish in Bahrain to show for that stretch.
“We had obviously a much better start than we hoped for and then maybe not as good a few races after, until now,” he said. “Hopefully, it’s going to take a sharp turn for better luck, but it’s been everything we kind of expected.”
“We were losing performance compared to the others with the old car,” he said. “Now we are, hopefully, on the steep learning curve with the new car and going to make progress. We know the new car is faster, for sure. It’s just about trying to get it right and put everything together.
Patrick Head, engineering director for the Williams F1 team and a longtime observer of the sport, likes what he has seen of Bourdais.
“Like a lot of things, you’ve got to get everything working together,” Head noted. “One’s also got to remember that up until Monaco they were running last year’s car, albeit with some development. I think he well justifies his place in Formula One and I quite expect to see him starting putting results together soon.”
Bourdais always believed it was his destiny to race in F1. It’s just that he expected to get there a lot earlier.
Before beginning his string of championships, he was rookie of the year in 2003, winning three races.
It was a great disappointment when he was shut out of F1 early in his career, but Bourdais insists he has no regrets about spending those five years in America. And he couldn’t be happier that he now gets to live his dream as a non-contender.
“For me, it was always very clear (that) it’s trying to enjoy yourself which is the first target,” Bourdais said. “Give your best for yourself and for the team, especially. Then, if the car is only good enough for 15th and you finish 12th, sometimes it’s even more satisfying than just winning the race with a car that everybody knows is capable of winning.”
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