Bourdais blunders, then thunders to victory
IMSA SPORTSCAR LONG BEACH (USA) 9 APRIL ROUND 3/12
Sebastien Bourdais provided a masterclass in controlled aggression on his way to winning Saturday’s IMSA Sportscar Championship race in Long Beach. Which was just as well, because he certainly made life a lot more difficult than was absolutely necessary for himself and Chip Ganassi/cadillac Racing co-driver Renger van der Zande.
Fifteen years after claiming the third of his back-to-back-to-back Indycar victories on the famed street circuit, Bourdais produced a stunning lap in qualifying to secure his second successive IMSA pole. The evergreen Frenchman’s time was almost two seconds faster than the previous record set in 2019 by Helio Castroneves, and a relatively comfortable 0.361s clear of the field, which was led by Ganassi team-mate Alex Lynn.
Bourdais leapt immediately into the lead at the start, opening up a gap of almost three seconds inside just five laps. But he then misjudged his attempt to lap a Porsche GTD car at the notoriously tight Turn 11 hairpin that leads onto Shoreline Drive. Bourdais carried a little too much speed into the corner and understeered wide, such that he had to bring the car to a halt in order not to impact the wall at the exit of the corner. By the time he had selected reverse and rejoined, first place had transformed into sixth, more than 20s adrift of the new leader.
Despite initially believing the victory would be out of reach, Bourdais made up a deficit of more than 16s to the fourthplaced JDC Miller Motorsports Cadillac of countryman Tristan Vautier in just 10 laps. Over the course of the next 14 laps he caught and overtook Tom Blomqvist’s Meyer Shank Acura, Pipo Derani’s Action Express Cadillac and, finally, Lynn to resume his position at the front of the field. It was a remarkable performance. Just as impressively, Bourdais completed a total of 40 laps, almost exactly halfway through the 100-minute race, before pitting for service and a driver change to van der Zande.
A flurry of full-course cautions in the latter half of the race kept the Dutchman on his toes but he was comfortably able to edge clear of Earl Bamber, in for Lynn, to ensure a magnificent victory and a 1-2 sweep for the Ganassi Cadillac team. The comeback was all the more important given that the #01 car had finished last among the DPI contenders in each of the opening two endurance races of the season at Daytona and Sebring.
Vautier and Richard Westbrook finished third and now lie just two points behind Lynn and Bamber in the title chase.
An exciting GTD Pro battle featured Jordan Taylor’s Corvette holding a slender lead over the Pfaff Porsche of Mathieu Jaminet throughout the opening stint. But there was a bizarre incident in the pitlane when the Corvette team fumbled a wheelnut during its tyre change… whereupon the errant nut lodged itself in the Porsche’s radiator, ending its day. A drivethrough penalty for the miscue took the Corvette out of contention, paving the way for the Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin of Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas to bounce back from a disappointing start to the season and claim the victory. Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat finished second aboard their Vasser Sullivan Lexus.
Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers combined to lead the GTD class throughout in their Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3.