Bourdais: Laguna Win Makes Up for Recent ‘Tough Phase’

Photo: Rick Dole/IMSA

Sebastien Bourdais said victory in Sunday’s Motul Course de Monterey powered by Hyundai N was what Chip Ganassi Racing needed to ‘get our head out of it’ after a recent run of misfortune.

The Frenchman and co-driver Renger van der Zande delivered the second IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship victory for the Cadillac V-Series.R and maiden triumph for CGR in the new-for-2023 GTP category.

It came in a controlling closing stanza of the race for the No. 01 Cadillac, which saw van der Zande pass the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac of Alexander Sims on the race’s final restart with 41 minutes to go and cruise to the win.

The victory for Bourdais and van der Zande came after retirements in their last three outings as co-drivers.

A mechanical failure that led to a fire for the car while leading the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring was followed by an accident at the start of last month’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach for Bourdais, while van der Zande survived a shunt of his own, triggered by an electrical fault in the FIA World Endurance Championship race at Spa-Francorchamps.

“Everyone knows how challenging the last couple of months have been since our Sebring retirement,” Bourdais said.

“It’s never fun to go through those phases, but it’s part of racing. It’s something you have to pull through.

“I think the whole group was starting to lose a little bit of spirits, so it’s really good that we’ve gotten our head out of it with a win today.”

The Laguna weekend got off to a challenging start for the crew once again, with Bourdais crashing the car in opening practice after a brake-by-wire issue, which “compromised” the amount of track time heading into the first two-hour and 40-minute race of the season.

“It trickled down to Saturday because we didn’t get a qualifying sim, so the effort wasn’t that great to get sixth,” Bourdais said.

“The start was kind of chaotic and we ended up buried in seventh or eighth. The guys did a really good call on strategy and cycled us to third. Things were starting to look up at that point.

“The car was starting to come alive and the track gripped up. It felt good and I could start to push and run the two leaders down.

“Then the yellow came out and it put us all the way back to seventh.

“Renger came out and did it again! I couldn’t ask for a better teammate. When he’s put in those positions, I don’t think there is anybody better than him.

“He made some pretty critical passes to get us to the front and managed from there.”

Van der Zande, in his 100th IMSA start, said the win has brought momentum back to the organization heading into Cadillac’s highly anticipated return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans next month.

“Coming from a big shunt at Spa to win this race is what you call lows and highs,” he said. “This is our Le Mans car. It’s going to Le Mans as a winner.

“It’s a winning car that will get flown over to Le Mans and fight for the big one.

“Today, we’re going to celebrate a bit. There’s not much time to Le Mans to put everything in perspective that we learned today about the car, the engine, the hybrid, the braking and all the systems that in there.

“It’s so nice when we get a win like this. One of the tricks they gave me in the car gave me this win with braking. I’m really proud of the whole team.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John