Although he left the Champ Car World Series on a high note after claiming his 31st race win in just five years, Sebastien Bourdais still had some gripes about the final weekend in Mexico City.

Having missed out on pole position after what he described as a 'bad' second qualifying session, the Frenchman was hit with a 22-second reduction in the amount of power to pass he was allowed in the race for allegedly breaking rules about laying rubber on his grid slot. Asked about the punishment during the post-race press conference, the four-time champion was vehement in his defence.

"Bullsh*t," was how he reacted when asked whether it was a legitimate penalty, "I've been dusted a few times this year for doing things that I haven't done, and I'm really disappointed because I tried to do the best I can. Like yesterday, when I had to give up my qualifying run not to interfere with Justin [Wilson] - trust me, that was the toughest thing I had to do in a long time because the very last thing I wanted to do was to just have a non‑qualifying session like I had.

This morning was just the same crap - period. I rolled down the pre‑grid like I had been instructed [and] I took the stuff from the finish line. Yeah, I dropped the clutch on my box, but I didn't come to a stop. The problem is [race director] Tony [Cotman] doesn't seem to be able to put in writing what he thinks. That's the real problem."

Bourdais was also out-spoken about the decision to throw a caution with what turned out to be ten laps to run, when he held a comfortable eleven-second lead over Will Power.

"Yeah, that was a good one, another good one I should say," he glared, "I guess it was getting boring, right.

"Obviously, I knew it could be a big, big, big problem because Will was going to be on the push‑to‑pass every single lap from the restart, and I could only use it once, maybe twice. So I had to make few 'mistakes', [cut] through the chicane - which isn't really easy when you put all the marbles on the tyres and you've got to clean them off and it's a restart. Last three starts in racing, last in the race, man..... I was focused. I knew what I had to do, but a lot of things can happen, the wrong things.

"I could hold pretty much flat in the Peraltada, so I had a pretty good feeling about the whole thing, but I knew I just couldn't afford to make any mistakes. It was a little nerve‑wracking."