How in-form Bourdais is nailing his “normal transition”

With the Le Mans 24 Hours on the horizon, Sebastien Bourdais says his sportscar racing odyssey “is about to get a whole lot crazier”. He’s not wrong.

The Frenchman has been a regular in sportscars for most of the past two decades, but the difference this time is that it’s not in parallel with a single-seater programme. For the first time since 2010, the four-time Champ Car champion has no US open-wheel ride this year. Instead, he’s split his focus between the IMSA Sportscar Championship with Chip Ganassi Racing’s Cadillac DPi-V.R, and the World Endurance Championship with Vector Sport in the ubiquitous LMP2 ORECA-Gibson 07.

Bourdais acknowledges that the door to an IndyCar return is now “pretty much” closed.

“I was still hoping that there might be something this year towards the end of the season with maybe a third car programme kickstarting to help that going,” he tells Autosport prior to securing a second IMSA win of the season at Detroit's Belle Isle. “But I think it’s pretty much all buried at this point.

“For the future, the Cadillac contract is pretty much exclusive, so it’s very unlikely going to open up any kind of doors. Yes, I think it’s pretty much [done]. Not so much by choice, but just opportunities – racing is a lot about that.”

The glittering IndyCar chapter of his career may now be behind him, but Bourdais is enthused by what’s coming on the horizon. It’s the last season for the 2017-era Daytona Prototype international cars before LMDh arrives to face off against Le Mans Hypercars in IMSA and the WEC. Details of Caddy’s plans for its Dallara-based LMDh that will race in the WEC’s Hypercar class and IMSA GTP will be fully revealed on Thursday, but Ganassi is expected to play a major role in the development