.fr - sebastien bourdais - champ car driver interviews
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The Pics
With Sebastien Bourdais in the Cleveland Newman-Haas tent
Suited up, with champion's wings
Cleveland winner interviewed
Obigations, obligations!
Where's the time to begin to enjoy a grandprixcity?
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Champ Car drivers discuss their favorite grandprixcities™
Sebastien Bourdais - Newman-Haas Team Lola
What can't help but strike you when you speak with Sebastien Bourdais is his incredible sense of calm, destiny, and honesty.
He doesn't "presume" he's a great driver, it is a deduction he's reached after his successes, in F3000, in Sportscar racing, and now in Champ Car, and it seems to speak for itself. When asked about Formula One he said "We shall see", but underlying that was a sense that people who have reached his astounding achievements, regardless of his tender years, will go to Formula One. "But not", he adds, "unless I have a car that stands a chance to win." And there you are, I thought, there you are precisely. There is Sebastien Bourdais. There seemed not only a confidence in his voice about a phenomenal present and future in the top echelons of international motorsport, but a weighed and studied maturity. He wouldn't take the first ride just to get out there, he'd show up with a track record in a car that stood a chance. If he was going to be, he was to be a Montoya, not a De Matta, and he had plenty of years to do it. It wasn't a consuming dream, but a sense of destiny based on a slowly building reputation. I had seen that kind of calm in Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, and Michael Schumacher and it became apparent quickly to me that I had met a racer apart.
The Champ Car paddock is full of admiration for his car control and this sense of maturity. He is not long for Champ Car, it seems. He will study it carefully, consume it, conquer it, and move along. And at this level of motorsport, moving along is to Formula One. "Not next year," he said, again with a wry smile, "I am not ready, the package must be perfect."
I asked him about his favorite grandprixcity. He had to think. There was business to do at Monaco and Nurburg and Imola where he had won races on his way to the F3000 championship. He said that he enjoyed Long Beach and always loved returning to his birthplace, coincidentally, Le Mans, and that he was very much looking forward to visiting Surfer's Paradise in Australia in October for the Lexmark Indy Grand Prix there, because he had heard so much from the other drivers about it.
"In F3000 you don't have time to enjoy a place. You are a long way away from the circuit because the best places and the limelight is obviously reserved for them. But we try to enjoy a little of the places we visit."
He did say that next year he was moving to the Tampa area in Florida for personal reasons, and that he liked that part of the world, particularly since he would be close to St. Petersburg for next year's (2004's) season opener. St. Pete, Florida had given him a good feeling and he looked forward to escaping down there when he had free time. I could understand that!
When asked about his favorite circuit, Sebastien offered the newly repaved and renovated Zandvoort.
Godspeed, Cvetko Ostroznik
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