A Look Back to 2004: Sebastien Bourdais

For Sebastien Bourdais, topping a very successful 2003 campaign would be a tall order. In his rookie season he took five poles, three victories, and seven podiums on his way to earning Rookie-of-the-Year honors. He also became the first rookie to win the Greg Moore Legacy Award, which honors the memory of the late Champ Car star. Driving for the powerful Newman/Haas Racing team, he was one of the favorites for the overall 2004 series title. But living up to expectations is much harder than just having them.

Eight poles and seven victories later, Bourdais swept to his first-ever 2004 Champ Car series crown in grand style, leading all drivers in poles, wins, laps led, and qualifying average. Amazingly, he never started a race lower than third and collected an impressive 10 podiums. In just 32 career starts, Bourdais has started 40 percent of them from pole and won nearly a third, while finishing more than half of the time on the podium.

A third-place finish at Long Beach was perhaps a quiet beginning for what was to come. Bourdais then took hold of the championship lead at Monterrey, Mexico by starting from pole, leading 43 of the 72 race laps, and setting a new track record for the fastest race lap en route to a convincing victory. With his teammate, Bruno Junqueira, coming in second, Newman/Haas claimed its first 1-2 finish of the season and saw both its drivers climb to the top two places in the points standings. It was the beginning of a season-long battle between teammates for the championship.

Bourdais lost the points lead to Junqueira at the short oval race at Milwaukee after a rare DNF left him with an 18th place. But at the very next race in Portland, Bourdais claimed his second win of the year with another powerful performance by starting from pole and leading 85 of 94 laps. Junqueira finished a close second, making it the second 1-2 finish for Newman/Haas in 2004.

Bourdais then ran off with two more victories, making it three in a row with wins at Cleveland and Toronto. Newman/Haas took its third 1-2 finish of the season at Cleveland with Bourdais leading 88 of the 97 race laps for his second successive victory at the Burke Lakefront Airport temporary circuit. In Toronto, Bourdais claimed his third pole of the year and went on to lead 75 of 84 laps for his fourth win of 2004. A DNF by Junqueira meant that Bourdais climbed back into the championship lead by 28 points over his teammate.

“Well, obviously I think things are rolling very well for us,” Bourdais explained after the race. “But, you know, I just really want to stay focused on the target, which is to try to win the championship. Motor racing, you know, things are moving so fast, you are really successful one day and the next day you’re nowhere. I just want to really stay focused and keep pushing as we’ve been doing since the beginning of the year.”

Bourdais maintained his championship lead with a fifth at Vancouver. He followed that up with a third at Elkhart Lake to go along with his fourth pole of the season.

Another pole in Denver started off what was to be the signature performance of 2004 for Bourdais. As Newman/Haas teammates Bourdais and Junqueira headed side-by-side into Turn One from their front-row starting positions, they touched, sending Bourdais into a spin, which dropped him far back in the field. After three laps of caution, he restarted in 13th. It took him just six laps to pass his way back up to eighth. By Lap 32 of 90, Bourdais had climbed back to fifth, having made all his progress under green. Following the second set of pit stops, he found himself in fourth. Then on Lap 55, Bourdais passed Junqueira for third at the site of their earlier battle in Turn One. Then a full-course caution on Lap 74 allowed Bourdais to close up on the leading two cars driven by Paul Tracy and Mario Dominguez.

On the restart at Lap 79, Bourdais dove inside Dominguez, banging wheels to claim second. Despite minor suspension damage from his battle with Dominguez, Bourdais set off for the leader. Two laps later he attacked Tracy for the lead and made the pass in Turn Nine. Bourdais then capitalized on his advantage to build up a small cushion. On the second-to-last lap, he turned in the fastest race lap and went on to claim victory by 7.446 seconds in perhaps the most exciting race of the season.

Despite the momentum gained by such an impressive performance, the next two races saw the championship close up. Bourdais suffered only his second DNF of the season in Montreal and followed that with an eighth place in Monterey, California. Heading into the final three races of the season, Bourdais held on to a 24-point lead over his teammate.

Bourdais and Junqueira traded victories in the next two races with Bourdais prevailing in an exciting side-by-side battle with Junqueira at the Las Vegas superspeedway. Then Junqueira headed Bourdais by a little over a second to win at Surfers Paradise, Australia to record another 1-2 finish for Newman/Haas and set up a championship-deciding showdown at the season finale in Mexico City.

Yet, Bourdais left no doubt as to who deserved to be champion by taking pole and then leading wire-to-wire to claim victory and his first Vanderbilt Cup. His monumental season also earned him the Corona Cup for the most total points between the two events held in Mexico and the Bridgestone Passion For Excellence Award for the lowest aggregate time for personal fastest laps over the course of the season.