Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
The 24 Hours of Le Mans is more than a diversion for Sebastien Bourdais.
It's a homecoming, in some ways a birthright. And though winning a Champ Car championship probably would be more important to his career, a win this weekend at the world's most famous endurance race could be more important to his legacy.
"For my career, a championship (in Champ Car) would make my career much easier," said Bourdais, the 2003 Champ Car rookie of the year. "Basically, I would secure my image and be respected in the U.S. and be considered a very good driver. Le Mans is more for my pride probably, what it would represent in France and in my heart."
Bourdais' heart has been close to Le Mans from the start. He was born Feb.28, 1979 in a hospital that abuts the race course and grew up watching his father, Patrick, race at the track. Patrick Bourdais, 49, will contest his seventh Le Mans for a Panoz team in the Prototype 1 class, the same in which Sebastien will compete.
"I grew up in a very small village 15 kilometers from Le Mans," said Sebastien Bourdais, who now lives in Tampa. "I was pretty much introduced to the race from a very young age. I grew up in all that, especially since my dad raced there before I was even born."
Bourdais will make his fourth Le Mans start this weekend - this time in a Pescarolo Judd with teammates Emmanuel Collard and Nicolas Minassian. Though he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans karting race in 1996, his best finish in the main event was fourth in 2000. Bourdais retired early in 1999 with engine failure, finished 13th in 2001 and 10th in 2002.
Bourdais qualified sixth but had the fifth fastest time in practice in his attempt to help owner Henry Pescarolo end Audi's dominance.
Bourdais has accomplished a lot since his last Le Mans start. He won the 2002 FIA International F3000 with three wins, six poles and seven top-three finishes and won twice in the FIA Sport Championship to finish second in the driver standings. Bourdais also won the 24 Hours of Spa. The cumulative success earned him tests with the Renault and now-defunct Arrows Formula One teams, but Bourdais opted to join Newman/Haas racing in CART, now Champ Car.
Bourdais claimed the pole for his first CART race, the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, and became the first rookie to lead his first lap. In winning the pole in the next event at Monterrey, Mexico, he became the first since Nigel Mansell in 1993 to win poles in his first two races. Three wins, three seconds, five poles, a fourth-place points finish and the best qualifying average (3.67) in the series made Bourdais an easy choice for rookie of the year.
Through three of 16 races this season, Bourdais is fourth in the standings, 11 points behind teammate Bruno Junqueira. Bourdais led by five until crashing and finishing last at Milwaukee last week.
Bright and approachable, Bourdais is a favorite with his co-workers.
"He's obviously very fast, but he's also very intelligent, and that intelligence helps him to work well with the engineers when we explain what we want him to do and he's trying to explain back what the car is doing," Craig Hampson, Bourdais' Champ Car team engineer told the Associated Press.
Le Mans will test those skills and more. Greater open-wheel experience will not necessarily translate into sports car success, Bourdais said. In endurance racing, three drivers switch off for a twice-around-the-clock grind, battling changing track conditions, fatigue and the massive strain put on cars and engines.
"It's very difficult to compare," he said. "Basically, I think it is harder to achieve a better result in endurance racing. You need a good car, you need a good team and it's not just your skill. It's the whole team and all three drivers. I cannot say that I am going to balance the car my way and just do my job. It has to suit the team and be the fastest for three drivers."