After a year of globe-hopping that resulted in his Champ Car World Series title,
Sebastien Bourdais got to go home to France to do some racing at the weekend.
Bourdais joined 15 drivers from some of the world's top racing series in the Race of Champions in Paris on Saturday night, running in front of a crowd of over 60,000 against top-level competition such as seven-time
Formula 1 World Champion
Michael Schumacher and World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb. The competition took place in the Stade de France, on an asphalt rally-style track where drivers went head-to-head with the winner moving on in the tournament format.
Bourdais was the only driver from a US-based series to win a round in the Race of Champions, beating former IRL and Champ Car driver Kenny Brack by 15.1 seconds in their first round matchup. Bourdais' first-round time of 1:43.95 was the second-fastest of the entire round, but earned him a spot in the quarter-finals against the only driver to post a faster time in the first round – the vaunted Schumacher. Neither driver was able to duplicate their first-round efforts and Bourdais fell to the
Ferrari ace by 3.2 seconds.
The 2004 Champ Car titlist also competed in the Nation's Cup event with rally driver Stephane Sarrazin on the Playstation France team. However the Bourdais/Sarrazin team fell to their countrymen Jean Alesi and WRC champ Loeb, who went on to win the Nation's Cup.
The Champ Car title winner also finished second for the second consecutive time in voting for the
SPEED Channel Driver of the Quarter. Bourdais finished second in the overall voting to NASCAR's Jimmie Johnson, making it a clean sweep as NASCAR drivers won the voting by a panel of credentialed media in each of the four quarters of 2004.
