Photo Credit: Chris Jones/IndyCar
On October 12 it was announced that Sebastien Bourdais would be joining the team for 2017. Bourdais, who is sixth on the all-time IndyCar list with his 35 victories, leaves KVSH Racing where he raced for the past three years. However, Bourdais isn’t new to DCR because the French driver raced for them in 2011. Also joining DCR will be two engineers he worked with previously – Craig Hampson and Oliver Boisson.
Bourdais and Hampson go back a long ways as they have 31 race wins as well as four consecutive Champ Car World Series championships from 2004-2007 when Bourdias raced for Newman/Haas Racing. Boisson worked with Bourdais at KVSH, being the lead engineer those three years at KVSH, winning four races during that time.
“They’re the best two engineers I’ve worked with in the last 20 years,” Bourdais said. “It should really be a strong package. It’s the common denominator for me. I just want to be put in the position to have what I need to perform.”
“We were honored to bring him back to the States to return to his roots in 2011 and even more excited about what our future prospects will be in 2017 and beyond,” Coyne said in a team news release. “We have assembled a great group of guys over the past few years and, with additions to our engineering department for 2017, we are definitely ‘putting the band back together.’
“We will have some greats from the Newman/Haas era of Craig Hampson (as) chief engineer, Todd Phillips (as) chief mechanic, Oren Trower as lead mechanic, Colin Duff and others all from the Newman/Haas team,” Coyne added. “Needless to say, we look forward to 2017 with great anticipation.”
Bourdais says he was grateful for KVSH’s efforts but he was unsure of the team’s future so he started to look elsewhere.
“I’m very happy with my environment, I’m just miserable during the winter because for the last two, it’s been chaos,” he said. “We think we’re a go, then come November, December, January or February, somebody puts it in reverse and says, ‘Oh, there’s no money left.’ Then people get let go and the next thing you know, the team blows up. Everything you’ve tried to build for a year goes up in the air and lands upside down.
“I’d rather have a small organization that only knows one direction, which is forward, rather than trying to shoot over your goals and trying to turn it around and start from minus-10 points. That’s why I’m looking for something else because it’s just too frustrating to operate that way.”
DCR has been in Indycar since 1984 when Dale was driving, however they didn’t achieve their first win until 2009 and now has four victories – two which were delivered by the late Justin Wilson, one by Mike Conway and most recently in 2014 by Carlos Huertas. Conor Daly, who drove for Coyne in 2016, gave them their best races of the eason with a second place finish at the first Belle Isle race as well as a fourth place at Watkins Glen. Daly is a likely consideration for the teams other full-time ride for 2017 but nothing has been confirmed as of yet.
“We’re always looking to improve, the talent of the team and the talent of the driver, which is obviously the most important ingredient,” Coyne said at Sonoma. “We look at all our options every year and make our decisions as best we can.
“I think this year, our decision will be made early rather than later. By the time we get to the (December) holidays, we’ll know both of our drivers, our staff and everything and be off and running. That’s usually unusual for us. We had one done early last year with Conor. I think this year we’ll have them both done early, which is good.”
Coyne will be staying with Honda as one of their Honda Powered teams.
“We want to have a winning team,” he said. “We’ve won four races. We’d like to win more. We’d obviously love to contend for a championship, but I think that’s still a couple of years away. The winning more is next year. We always like bringing up young guys, too, so if we can have a veteran in the car who can win races and bring up a young driver at the same time, we enjoy that.”
In 2011, Bourdais raced nine road/street course races for DCR, earning his best finish of sixth four times. He finished 14th in the points standings this season and has won at least one race in each of the past three years.
“I think I’ve proven I can do it in the right car,” Bourdais said. “It’s just tough to put yourself in that position more often. To be able to do that, you need the whole team behind you that gives you the car, week in and week out. I’m only as good as my car allows me to be.
“Dale puts forth a very strong effort and he’s very loyal to his people. He keeps going forward. Dale’s a racer. There are still a few holes in the system which we will need to fill to be able to become a contender week in and week out, and to be a championship contender you need that consistency, but I am confident we will get there.”
Bourdais admits he got caught up in trying to accomplish to much since he returned to IndyCar. But now he can enjoy his off-season, knowing his future in the sport is secure.
“I get caught up in the moment, wanting it so bad,” he said. “When you overcompensate, you make mistakes that make you look stupid. You should never put yourself in that spot. I took Scott (Dixon) out at Barber (Motorsports Park). I screwed up at Mid-Ohio at the end there, I got frustrated behind Takuma (Sato). I threw two top-fives away. We had a top car to fight for a podium for sure at Barber.
“We’ve also had some highs. We set a track record at Barber. We just haven’t been as consistent as we have wanted to be. We’ve had some strong showings. The fact that the Hondas have stepped it up and mixed it up, there have been more cars to fight with. We’ve struggled more in qualifying, which sometimes put us in a bad spot. I’m really looking forward to it.”
