Sébastien Bourdais: “It backfired on us”

5th yesterday at the finish at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama, Sébastien Bourdais (Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan – Honda) displayed a touch of fatalism regarding the progress of the second part of an event postponed from Sunday to Monday due to the capricious weather in the region.

Second behind Josef Newgrden (Team Penske – Chevrolet) when the race restarted, the Frenchman applied himself to a one-stop strategy, saving as much fuel as possible to make only one pass along the track. stands.

A bet that seemed to be winning until the rain returned in the final moments. “We executed the plan to perfection, comments Bourdais. We had a lot of tire degradation early on, but we were still able to save more fuel than most.

Josef was attacking but it looked like we could beat him with his second save and we took the lead. I had enough fuel to finish, but unfortunately Mother Nature decided to open the skies and there was nothing we could do about it. We tried to stay outside and it backfired. »

Especially since the Frenchman had to deal with a car delicate after putting on the rain tires on the 76th lap. “I don’t know what happened but the car was evil. I could not do anything. I barely kept Scott Dixon behind me.

Unfortunately, you can't predict what the weather is going to offer, so you have to make a choice one way or the other and we were on the wrong side of the fence today. »

Sébastien Bourdais, however, remains in the leading quartet in the championship before the start of May in Indianapolis, first with the road event on May 12, followed by the big 500 mile event (May 27).