Bourdais: A Look Back at the Reasons for a Failure
Formula One was not made for the man from Le Mans.
In an exclusive interview given to the magazine *Grand Prix*, Sébastien Bourdais reflects on the reasons for his failure in Formula One. The former Toro Rosso driver, who was replaced after the 2009 German Grand Prix by Jaime Alguersuari, acknowledges today that F1 simply no longer suited him, even after abandoning the Nascar adventure due to his obsession with Formula One.
I think I did some not bad things. But I never felt comfortable in the car from the moment the STR3 was introduced, confides the Manceau. The car was very powerful, but it didn’t suit me.
For the four-time Champcar champion, the reason was simple: « The definition of the cars moved towards wider front tires, narrower rear tires, and the cars became very unstable at the rear. I learned to adapt a car to make it “drivable” with my style before accelerating. With the Toro Rosso, at the beginning of the 2008 season, which was still in a 2007 configuration with a solid rear end, I held my own against Vettel. Sometimes, I even beat him. And as soon as the new car arrived, poof, he got away. The car was perfect for him, and I couldn’t manage it. It oversteered way too much in tight and medium corners for me to express myself. »
The Frenchman admits that his two seasons – or almost – spent at Toro Rosso, were the two worst years of his career: « It’s very hard to be blamed for lack of results when nothing is done to make you feel comfortable in the car. […] Toro Rosso didn’t design the car and didn’t do the development. Everything was done by Red Bull. In these conditions, you can report flaws to your engineer, but there are never any follow-ups. »
But for Bourdais, the main problem remained the evolution taken by Formula One in recent years: « Today, in Formula One, the cars are designed based on aerodynamic figures. This results in a balance, and the driver has to adapt to it. That has never been my strength. »
The Frenchman, a Peugeot Sport endurance driver, goes even further by saying he considered not continuing for 2009: « If I went back in 2009 – and at that time, the car’s performance was not up to par – it was solely because I hadn’t found any solutions in the United States. »
It is now a done deal as Bourdais completes his Endurance program with an INDYCAR program on road and street circuits for Dale Coyne Racing.
