Bourdais not ruling out IMSA 2022 title tilt despite ill-fortune

The Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac driver and team-mate Renger van der Zande have only mustered a single podium finish from the opening half of the season, with victory at Long Beach, and have five more rounds to make up a 208-point deficit on the points-leading Wayne Taylor Racing Acura of Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor.

Mechanical woes at Daytona, Sebring and Laguna Seca left them unable to challenge, but Bourdais and van der Zande were also in contention for victory at Mid-Ohio until the Dutchman spun while battling Taylor for the lead.

While conceding that they will need others to drop points, the four-time IndyCar champion has taken pole for three of the five races held this season and believes that the team has the pace in hand to deliver results.

“It’s definitely not set the best way possible,” Bourdais told Autosport.

“But if we keep having the pace we’ve had so far, you can hope that the opposition will also run into its own problems at some point and you’re kind of done with it.

“Definitely we’ve had already at least one too many jokers.

“At this point it’s kind of like everything needs to fall into place for us to be in the fight at the end, which is not entirely under our control.

“But at this point it’s almost a moot point to even think about it, it’s basically ‘go and do the best job you can, have some fun behind the wheel, and make no mistakes’ and hope that it’s enough. That’s all you can really do.”

#01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac DPi: Sebastien Bourdais, Scott Dixon

Photo by: Chris Owens / Motorsport Images

Bourdais also believes Ganassi is “still making big strides” in its second year running the Cadillac DPi-V.R.

Van der Zande and Kevin Magnussen drove a single-car entry last year before the team