Why 4-Time Champ Bourdais is Done with IndyCar, Going the Distance in IMSA, WEC in 2022

• Sebastien Bourdais has taken a full-time gig racing Daytona Prototypes for Chip Ganassi in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, driving the No. 01 Cadillac.
  

• Bourdais will also be running five of the six races in the World Endurance Championship in an LMP2 car for a new team, Vector Sport.

• Full-time sports car racing means leaving NTT IndyCar Series behind.

There was no farewell tour in 2021 for Sebastien Bourdais in IndyCar, despite a career spanning nearly 20 years, dating back to his time in Champ Car with Newman/Haas Racing, where he scored four championships.

But that’s fine with Bourdais: “I’m not real big on farewell tours,” he said.

Late last season, after a middling year with A.J. Foyt’s team, Bourdais said that he would be taking a full-time gig racing Daytona Prototypes for Chip Ganassi in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, driving the No. 01 Cadillac with teammate Renger van der Zande. For the Rolex 24 at Daytona, IndyCar champs Scott Dixon and Alex Palou on on board for the ride

For 2022, Ganassi has expanded to two teams, with Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn in the No. 2 car, helped out in the Rolex 24 by Marcus Ericsson and Kevin Magnussen.

Bourdais will also be running five of the six races in the World Endurance Championship in an LMP2 car for a new team, Vector Sport, run by Gary Holland, who worked with Bourdais when the French driver raced a Ferrari for Risi Competizione in Bourdais’ hometown of Le Mans in 2020.

“It’s only five races on top of the 10 races in IMSA, so it’s not that crazy of a schedule," Bourdais said. "You’re not going to retire on the money you are making over there, but still it’s a good opportunity and some cool guys to race with. I’m looking forward to going over there and rediscovering that side of the pond.

“It's an incredible era for endurance racing, so I’m very excited about this season. It’s also a comfortable place to finish up your career.

It will give Bourdais a chance to win, something he hasn’t really had in IndyCar the last few seasons. He managed two fifth-place finishes for Foyt Enterprises in 2021, and his last wins were back-to-back victories at the St. Petersburg Grand Prix in 2018 and 2019 for Dale Coyne Racing. He’s had six wins and 14 top-five finishes in six years in the IndyCar series. In five years in Champ Car, he had 31 wins.

But his sports car record is just as impressive, especially since he has driven for some premium teams, something that seldom happened in his post-Champ Car years in IndyCar, or during his time in Formula 1 from 2007-2009. Bourdais won the inaugural Brickyard Grand Prix at Indy in 2012, and in 2014, he won overall in the Rolex 24 in the Action Express Corvette, and finished second in the car in 2015, and won the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.

He has made 14 starts at his home race, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and despite an impressive record of eight top-four finishes, “most of my experiences there have been sour. It’s been heartbreak after heartbreak.” Yes, he helped drive the Ganassi Ford GT to its anniversary win there in 2016, and he has three second-place finishes overall with the Peugeot team.

But full-time sports car racing means leaving IndyCar behind. It looked like he might stay on with Foyt in some capacity, “but there was a lot of discrepancy sponsorship-wise and in the team’s direction in general. When the opportunity with Ganassi and Cadillac Racing came about, I thought about it very hard and it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. I’ll be 43 in February, and you look at Helio Castroneves,” who is 46, “and I guess I could keep doing IndyCar for some time, but overall, it didn’t make sense. There were maybes and question marks.”

That said, “I’d like to do a couple of races at some point to do a small farewell bit” for his many fans. Probably not Indy—there “are very few third- and fourth-car programs that give you a real shot at the 500.”

Still, “it’s not my priority. And as the days go on, it’s looking less and less likely. When I made the decision to go with Cadillac, I very well knew that would be it.”

You have to wonder what his IndyCar record would look like if he ever got a chance to run a season with a Penske or Ganassi team. “Every time I was available there was nothing for me, and when I was committed that’s when teams came knocking at the door. I wish I could have driven for Chip and been Scott Dixon’s teammate at some point, and we worked on that for a while, but it never happened. It is what it is. I love IndyCar, but there comes a time when you have to go where you are wanted, and right now that is in sports cars.”

About the only box unchecked on Bourdais’ resume is the 24 Hours of Nurburgring. But surely he could get a ride if he wanted one: But that “may not be the smartest thing to do in your 40s, If you’d talked to me about it 10 years ago I would have jumped on it, but right now, I don’t know…”

After all, his plate is full, and with teams that can win races.

“Sebastien is one of this legends of American racing,” says Marcus Ericsson, former F1 driver and current IndyCar driver with Ganassi who is in the team car to Bourdais’. “He’s been here for a long time and he has had a great deal of success in so many categories. He’s hard-working, very determined and I look forward to having him on the Ganassi team.”