For the first time this season, Sebastian Bourdais would finish on the podium – not once, but twice. In both Honda Indy Toronto events, Bourdais was able to place on the podium with a third and a second.
For the Sunday event, Bourdais was able to escape the trouble in the final restart to seal the deal.
“It’s been quite an interesting end of the race,” he said. “It was a lot of basically just go with the flow and don’t make any mistakes. Everybody was going pretty hard.”
Bourdais also was faced with the addition of challenge of having no ‘push to passes’ as his button malfunctioned.
With having a good finish, it sets up a good base moving forward to other street courses this year.
“I think we got a workable base to begin with now,” Bourdais said. “It’s not perfect. Dixie is obviously gone, so we got work to do. We’ll keep at it.”
Bourdais added he is surprised, but pleased with the direction that they’re heading in.
“Tom came with kind of an idea and we just went more and more towards that direction,” Bourdais explained. “It just clicked for the first qualifying. Oh, okay, now we got grip. Now I can push. It was a pretty big eye opener. Then we just kept working at it all weekend. I think we were maybe a little weaker at the race yesterday.
“Again, we made small changes for warmup and the race, and the car was better again. That’s what it takes. Once you get closer, baby steps.”
The solid finishes for Boudais also show the growth of his team as they continue to grow.
“It’s awesome,” he said. “I think I’ve proved in a championship-winning car with a top team I can do it. Done it a few times. Hopefully people haven’t forgotten.
“At the end of the day it’s a whole different challenge when you have to start from scratch with a team, just bring people onboard to try to build something and get the right chemistry. It’s a completely different challenge.
“I really thought at the end of last year we were going to have an awesome season. Like I said yesterday, we just didn’t adapt very quickly to the new tires. Finally I think we understand something and it’s the turnaround for our season.”
