Sebastien Bourdais ends Champ Car career with victory

Posted on

| Written by

Toro Rosso’s new driver for 2008 Sebastien Bourdais drew his career in the American Champ Car series to a close with his 31st win in 73 races.

Bourdais had already wrapped up his fourth consecutive championship in five years years in the series.

It might not be as competitive a championship as it was in the days of Emerson Fittipaldi and Nigel Mansell, but Bourdais has raced like a consummate professional. Next stop – Formula 1.

He held on to his title this year despite a raft of changes to the sport. A brand new car was introduced for the one-make series and rolling starts were replaced with F1-style standing starts. Nonetheless Bourdais, who drives for crack Champ Car outfit Newman-Haas, won eight times.

Today’s race showed off Bourdais’ skill and ability under pressure. With 11 minute to go the chasing Will Power had 40 seconds more of the precious ‘power to pass’ than Bourdais as they waited for a rolling restart. But Bourdais got away miles clear of Power and sprinted to the flag.

Note to his F1 rivals next year: he’s handy on restarts…

Photo: GEPA / xpb.cc / Davenport / Red Bull

Related links

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

4 comments on “Sebastien Bourdais ends Champ Car career with victory”

  1. i wonder how he will do in F1 next year..

  2. No matter how low-profile Champ Car seems to be, if there is such thing as a winning mentality, than Bourdais certainly will bring it with him to Toro Rosso…

    I also fear for his future with an uncompetitive car, especially for his age, but I still hope he’ll, at least, taste a podium finish in his Formula 1 Career, and I would even say a race win, but it might sound far too optmistic by now…

  3. I agree Daniel, Seb’s domination of champcar was ruthless and schumiesque.

    Lest we forget that befroe he went over the ditch he was considered a major talent.

    I hope to see him being very competitive next year.

  4. Really looking forward to seeing what he can do next year. All the signs have been painfully obvious for several years now! And though it’s been fun to see him race over here, I’m glad to see he’s finally getting his chance in F1.

    However, it is a shame that Luizzi doesn’t appear to have a ride for next year. I thought he certainly did well enough to justify staying in F1.

Comments are closed.