Having clinched his fourth successive Champ Car title at Surfers Paradise, courtesy of becoming the first driver to win the Australian race twice,
Sebastien Bourdais had but a few days to compose himself before meeting the media.
Naturally, questions ranged from his feelings about another job well done, to his move to
Formula One next season.
MC:
Sebastien, thanks again for joining us. We appreciate you taking the time. I'm sure you're fully recovered from jet lag, but I wanted to start by asking whether you could tell me, over the last five years of your career at Champ Car, what would you describe as your favourite event and perhaps even your favourite foe?
Sebastien Bourdais:
It's great to be here today and talk about what we've done recently and not so recently, but it's kind of tough to summarise these five years. I think so many things have happened, so many good things obviously, with four championships in five seasons. It's just been a great weekend, to top it off with a win at Surfers and to be the first four‑time [champion] over there. Obviously, I have a lot of great memories and great events all through these five years. I think Long Beach will probably remain very special for me - we've won a few times over there, and the track has been really good to me - but it's not the only one. I've got to go with the big and loaded events, and Long Beach obviously is one of them.
Q:
Tell me, if you remember, about that first title and clinching in Mexico City....
SB:
It was a big, big fight with my team-mate Bruno [Junqueira]. We had to go all the way to the wire. It was a pretty intense race. We were both kind of in our own league on that day, and we were P1 and P2. We were just battling each other out, and eventually battling so hard that I made a small mistake, spun the car and still managed to win the race. It was obviously a great way, like in Surfers, to win the championship with a win, and it was one and two in the championship for Newman/Haas, so it was awesome. As everybody knows, the first professional achievements and that first championship is always something you remember with a huge emotion.
Q:
I guess I would ask my questions maybe sort of looking a little bit to the future of Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing. You weren't the first champion to have left the team actually for
F1 - Michael Andretti did, Cristiano da Matta did, obviously
Nigel Mansell was there for a period, and yet the team has continued to win after their champions left. I assume that you believe they'll be winning again in 2008, and I just wondered if you could maybe talk about why, what makes the team so good year in, year out?
SB:
Well, it's a little difficult to summarise, I think, but to be honest, it's obviously a very... an extremely talented group of people working together extremely well and extremely hard with great leadership from both Carl [Haas], Paul [Newman] and now Mike [Lanigan] joining us at the beginning of the season. [We're] actually extremely glad that we could offer him his first championship. I know he wanted it really bad.
