Bourdais vows to return this season
Driver determined to get back on track after crash in qualifying that fractured hip, pelvis and ribs
INDIANAPOLIS— Sebastien Bourdais was in one of the best race cars he’d ever had, so fast that most of his competitors thought he would win the pole for the Indianapolis 500.
Instead, he crashed during qualifying at Indianapolis Motor Speedway last weekend, hitting the wall at 227 mph and with 118 Gs of force. He fractured his pelvis, a hip and two ribs when his car exploded into pieces and spun through Turn 2 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
On Saturday, Bourdais vowed to be back in a car this season.
“I will be back at Sonoma,” he said of the Sept.17 season finale, “because I want to.”
Bourdais allowed The Associated Press to attend one of his physical therapy sessions at the Rehabilitation Hospital of Indiana, where he checked himself in after two surgeries earlier this week.
The 38-year-old Frenchman is already spending 31⁄ hours a day in therapy, performing weighted leg lifts and adduction pressure drills with a rubber ball, building his strength. He used a wheelchair to get from his room to the facility gym only because the trip takes too long on crutches.
Like a typical race car driver, Bourdais complained his chair is too slow and pulls to the right — “I need a better setup,” he quipped — and he is determined not to use it Sunday, when he returns to the scene of his crash to attend the Indianapolis 500.
“I am not showing up at the race track in a wheelchair,” he said.
Watching as a spectator and seeing James Davison in his car will be difficult. Bourdais was having a banner year. He was part of the winning sports car team at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, he captured the IndyCar opener at St. Petersburg and was driving a car he felt was capable of winning the 500. Next month, he was planning to return to his hometown in France to defend his class title at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
A four-time series champion who ranks sixth on IndyCar’s career win list — second among active drivers behind Scott Dixon — Bourdais had never before been seriously injured in a race car.
Three small wiggles on a flyer lap at Indianapolis last Saturday changed that.
“I’ll tell you, it makes you feel very small, your clothes cut off and lying naked on a board,” Bourdais said. “But I can only blame myself. Those things happen.”
Bourdais moved to tiny Dale Coyne Racing this year, convinced he could help the team become a contender. He got Coyne to hire his old engineers, Craig Hampson and Olivier Boisson, who had been so instrumental in his success. Hampson was part of 31race victories and four consecutive Champ Car World Series championships, while Boisson won four races with Bourdais over the last three years.
Bourdais keenly understands the dangers of racing after the deaths of IndyCar drivers Dan Wheldon at Las Vegas in 2011 and Justin Wilson at Pocono two years ago. Accidents far less severe than his own have proven fatal at Indy. But he also is practical about his profession, and Bourdais said his wife Claire would never discourage him from getting back behind the wheel.
“She would never ask me,” he said. “This is not my entire life, but it is my passion and what I love to do. And that would be a very big ask that she would never make.”