Bourdais starts return in Toronto
Driver here as adviser as he recovers from scary Indianapolis 500 crash
When French racing driver Sebastien Bourdais crashed during a high-speed qualifying run at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May, suffering multiple fractures to his pelvis and right hip, his team, Dale Coyne Racing, announced he was finished for the 2017 season. Not so fast. Whether there’s something in a racing driver’s genetic physical makeup, or whether it’s just ordinary, never-say-die desire, they seem to heal faster than mere mortals. Stirling Moss was seriously injured in a crash in 1960; his legs and back were broken. He missed three races. Niki Lauda was racing six weeks after receiving the last rites following a fiery crash in 1976. And when he lands in Toronto on Wednesday to act as an adviser to his team’s drivers competing in this weekend’s 31st Honda Indy Toronto, Sebastien Bourdais will be just short of seven weeks out of action.
Now he’s not going to be in a racing car; that won’t happen before Sept. 3 at Watkins Glen, N.Y. But he has healed sufficiently to be a part of his team again.
“The engineers and the team felt that I could be of help (at Exhibition Place),” Bourdais told the Star on Tuesday. “It’s a tricky track where I’ve done very well in the past (two wins, four podiums, 12 top 10s in 13 races). This is going be kind of a one-off — I don’t intend to go to other races till I can drive again — because there’s only so much I can do.
“But in a place like Toronto, it’s obvious: There are pavement changes to the surface of the circuit and I can tell (drivers Ed Jones and Esteban Gutierrez) what to look for, what to pay attention to, stuff like that. I’ll tell them about my personal experiences and, hopefully, they will be able to benefit from that.”
Bourdais has had a long, varied and successful career in Formula One (Sebastian Vettel was his teammate at Scuderia Toro Rosso), sports cars (he finished second in the 24 Hour of Le Mans and won the 24 Hours of Daytona) and Indy cars. He won the Champ Car World Series championship four years in a row.
He started serious international racing in 1995 and, in 22 years, had never had an accident that required he be admitted to hospital, until this past May. He lost control exiting the second turn at Indianapolis and piled into the wall, where his car caught fire.
Would such a violent crash make him gun shy about getting back into a car and racing at 220 miles an hour?
“Maybe there will be a bit of apprehension on the ovals,” he said, “but as far as a road course or a street course is concerned, I don’t think it’s going to have any effect at all. I’ve been doing this for a long time and have had big hits before — not ones where I wound up in the hospital but just because you don’t end up in the hospital doesn’t mean you don’t know what the result could be . . .
“I was very much aware of the risks before, and maybe I’m a bit more aware now, but it’s still what I want to do. It’s still my passion.” But, at 38, for how much longer? “(Dale Coyne) had the same question for me: ‘How long do you think you want to do this?’ I answered, ‘As long as I feel competitive.’
“I have no desire to stop until I feel like I’m no longer bringing anything to the table. If I feel I can race, and win races, then that’s OK. Otherwise, I’ll stop.”