“It’s certainly been a lot of fun,” Bourdais grinned. “When you look back, it’s a big achievement and a group success. It’s kind of tough to summarize these five years. So many things happened and so many good things obviously. It was great to top it off with a win in Surfers and become the first repeat winner over there. I have a lot of great memories and great events through these five years. I think Long Beach will probably remain very special for me. We’ve won a few times there and it’s been a track that’s been really good to me, but it’s not the only one.”
It can be argued that Bourdais’s period of dominance occurred at a time of small fields and comparatively weak competition. That may be true, but it doesn’t dispute the fact that the guy still had to go out there and make it happen, lap by lap, race after race. When you’re expected to win it can be a pretty heavy burden and most of the time Bourdais handled it well.
“It kind of took some of the fun away in some respects,” Bourdais admitted. “Because obviously when you finished second and you think you’ve had a pretty decent day, yeah, you were not the best on that given day but you still put in a pretty good performance, and people are starting to say, ‘Well, what happened to you? You only finished second today.’ That is a little difficult to deal with, I have to say.
“It also contributed to the fact that I wanted to move on to another challenge. Obviously, at some point you’re going to fall - you’re gonna not win - and that would have been very hard on everybody. But it’s always a little tough to manage that pressure.”
