CCWS Feature - Sébastien Bourdais Interview
14/06/2006
Sébastien Bourdais entered the 2006 season on the threshold of making history: a double Bridgestone Presents The Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford champion in '04 and '05, the Frenchman could become the first driver to conquer three consecutive national open-wheel racing titles since Ted Horn back in the 1940s.
So far, the Newman/Haas ace (above) seems well underway to achieve this honor. Four races into the 2006 campaign, Bourdais has scored four victories, on the wildly varied "territories" that make up the Champ Car World Series: on street circuits (Long Beach and Houston), a road course (Monterrey) and the high-speed Milwaukee oval.
Through all that success, the 27-year old has relied on the Bridgestone Potenzas that equip the entire Champ Car field, and must be up to the standards of the series' challenging calendar, one of the most diverse in all of motorsports.
"At the end of the day, in Champ Car, there's nothing more crucial to improving your lap times than the tyres," Bourdais says. "They're the only contact you have with the racing surface and are responsible for all the mechanical grip. That means that while you need to be goofing around a lot with the car setup to gain a tenth here or there, a different tyre compound can make you suddenly two seconds faster -- or slower."
The diversification of the Champ Car schedule also means that tyre technology is never allowed to stand still in the series -- ovals demand a tyre construction completely different from road and street circuits, for instance.
"The biggest difference between the oval and road course tyres is that the oval one is staggered, since they only need to turn left," the Frenchman explains. "I'm sure they have very different construction techniques and compounds, but for us drivers what matters is getting the feel for the tyre.
“Bridgestone is constantly working to improve our tyres, which is good but also challenging, because you must get the right feel for each new tyre that you try."
Another unique aspect of Champ Car competition is the presence of "alternate" tyres. Identified by red sidewalls, they feature a softer compound that offers more grip while not being as durable as the "regular" rubber with black sidewalls.
"The current Champ Car rules are very challenging in that aspect, because you get two sets of alternate tires for the weekend and you must use them," Bourdais admits. "The alternate tyre theoretically has better grip but, because they have a different construction, they can also change the balance of the car -- your car can become too loose on the alternate, for instance, and then you'll actually be slower with the softer tyre.
"So you're trying to make the same setup work with two different types of tyres, which can turn into a gamble sometimes. You need to learn how to 're-setup' the car when you change the compounds."
Another area where Bridgestone has made strides, in Bourdais' opinion, is on the wet-weather compounds utilized in the series: "The wet tyre we have now is a very good tyre," he says. "Before it was a very hard rubber but recently it has become softer, especially the street-course wet tyre. They don't last as long as they used to, but they do provide excellent grip."
Whatever the course type or the weather conditions, Bourdais has been unbeatable so far this season. Which begs the inevitable question: can he win all 15 races of the Champ Car season? "I don't think it's possible, but I'm sure going to try," he laughs. "The target has to be to win as many as we can, but winning all of them is inconceivable given how many uncertainties there are in any given race weekend. We do have a great team working incredibly hard, but in racing, that isn't enough to win every time out."