Co-driver of No. 01 Cadillac V-Series.R aims to conquer the road course in GTP
Sebastien Bourdais, co-driver with Renger van der Zande of the No. 01 Cadillac V-Series.R in the Grand Touring Prototype class of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, met with the media Tuesday to preview the Sept. 17 TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
Bourdais, the four-time CART champion, is no stranger to IMS:
- He co-drove a Daytona Prototype with Alex Popow to victory in the 2012 NASCAR Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series race on the 2.534-mile road course.
- He co-drove a Chevrolet Corvette Daytona Prototype to 11th place in 2013.
- He has made 10 INDYCAR starts on the 2.439-mile IMS road course (best finish of fourth in 2014, ’15 and 2018).
- He made his Indianapolis 500 debut in 2005 and has made nine starts overall, with a best finish of seventh in 2014 with KV Racing Technology (Dallara/Chevrolet).
- He and van der Zande prepped for the 2-hour, 40-minute race during a test July 28-29 at the Speedway.
Transcript of his Q&A:
When you think back to that first race back in 2012 at Indianapolis, how special of a win was that for you?
“It was a great day. Victories and firsts like that are always fond memories, especially with the way we had to do it because I think we had to go through the field twice – once in the dry and once on the wets. The weather was quite interesting; lots of precipitation and chaos in the race. It’s always those kinds of race that you reflect on later and it’s the only time that I kissed the bricks, so it was a pretty cool day.”
It’s a different atmosphere from IndyCar to sports cars to IMS. Does it still hold a special kind of magic for sports cars?
“The place is amazing. When you enter the grounds, it’s a very special place and it brings a lot of memories. Every time it’s race day at IMS it has a different vibe. A lot of people are going to show up, I hope. It’s been asked a lot that sports cars come back and I’m fully anticipating a great racing weekend with a big crowd. This place deserves a big crowd because it’s such a big place, and I think Indianapolis being such a motor racing city is always responding well to good shows. We have that in IMSA right now. It’s great to be part of it with Cadillac Racing and it’s a home race with Chip Ganassi Racing, so a lot of things to look forward to.”
Where are the challenges on the track?
“It’s very much a one-groove racetrack and every time you have to get out of that groove – and you will have to – it will make it really difficult. Marbles build up really fast, so for us in the GTPs not being than much faster than the LMP2s and certainly not being any faster in the braking zones, the interaction is going to be quite tricky and will decide the race. How easily your car gets to maneuver around people will be key. Technically, I think it’s a track that is very tricky because you have very pointy apexes and you’re basically braking and shooting for a very specific point. Not like a flowing corner and therefore the margin to hit the apex or not is very small and critical, because if you hit the apex it dictates a very different corner than if you are a half a foot away or not. There is no adjustment from there and they are all pretty long corners, so I think a good front end and getting the car to maneuver around is critical.”
Is virtual energy something you’re aware of during a stint and is there something you can do to try to help with the tools and braking and such?
“It’s something that we’re very much aware of. We can pretty much pick how much fuel we actually put in the car, so it really is virtual energy. I actually came back from came back from Laguna Seca and the strategy was a little bit different there and I was explaining to (wife) Claire that we can to the pit and plugged in but did not change tires and did not actually put fuel in the car. She was like, ‘Say that again. So, you came to the pits. You did not put fuel in the car or take tires, so what were you in the pits for?’ You can be plugged in, not take fuel, and replenish the virtual tank. That is basically dictated when you start the race how much energy the stint with, so it kind of opens up tricks in races when you have a lot of yellows and you’re not actually going to be limited by fuel but limited by energy to get to the end. It kind of opens up different strategies. We’re saving energy the same way. It’s just a matter of a different factor. You obviously keep an eye on the amount of fuel you have in the car. You mostly have to keep an eye on the energy you have left to finish the race. How much regen you get and how you use it is impacting the energy per lap, and that is governing everybody.”
How much more value does IMS add to the sport and where it wants to go?
“With Roger Penske putting so much energy and finance into bringing IMS to its full potential that everybody wants to see in the U.S. and worldwide, I think it makes sense to have a race part of the IMSA schedule. There’s a huge manufacturer push right now. The interest in endurance racing is getting quite incredible to the point where it’s actually going to be difficult to be invited and participate. I’m really happy to see it grow and earn its place back at IMS. All we can hope for is it reaches a peak and attendance is there and everybody brings the energy that a race needs to be successful.”
What has the process of learning the GTP car been like this year?
“It’s a completely new car and we at Cadillac have not really been in a different position than anybody else. We’re figuring things out along the way. It was good to go testing (at IMS); it was really the first test to prepare for Indy since Sebring. So, we learned quite a bit of things about the car, and we went to Road America and it was definitely beneficial. We were on pace and happier right away. The race weekend didn’t necessarily turn out the way we wanted, but it definitely felt like we found a step in terms of pace. It’s a classification that changes a lot. We can see that some cars use the tires better than others depending on the conditions. We’ve been using the harder tire from Michelin ever since Watkins Glen and it’s definitely flipped the order a little bit. The Cadillacs were a bit happier on softer compounds, taking better care of the tires. Now that it’s the harder tire through the summer and it’s going to hold true at Indy, it has been harder for us to extract the most out of it and others have been able to kind of pop up in terms of performance. It’s interesting to see the evolution track to track and circumstances after another. I think it’s all very close. The BoP has worked well. It’s been good racing and we’ve seen a lot of different winners, so I think the crowd has a lot to look forward to. For us, the GTP has been quite different because it’s a heavier car with better tires but more weight with a lot less downforce, so it’s a different combination and you have to be more patient with the car but you still have to push rally hard. The racing has been ferocious, so you have to earn it.”
There has to be a lot of excitement in the Ganassi camp right now?
“Chip Ganassi Racing has had an incredible season, especially on the IndyCar side. They keep showing incredible strength in that program. Obviously, the start of the season for us has been quite challenging. But we’ve shown speed. We’ve just struggled to put weekends together. Road America was a bit of a turning point after a good test at Indy, so we sure hope we can bring some success to the team at home. GM’s headquarters are not very far away from Indy, so it’s time for us to get that Cadillac to the front. And there would be no better place than the Indy road course.”
