INDYCAR 2016 Driver Review: Sebastien Bourdais

Just when you thought that the Verizon IndyCar Series had run out of ways to surprise, 2016 came along. The championship was won by a guy who looked all at sea 12 months earlier, his closest rival didn't even participate in the first race, and the winner of the 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500 was a recent F1 refugee who apparently figured out how to make a car work without fuel.

Twenty-four drivers made at least three starts during the 2016 season, and each one is a story. Join RACER.com each day as we retrace their journeys.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS

NO. 11 KVSH RACING CHEVROLET

2016 Best result: 1st (Detroit race 1)
2016 Championship position: 14th (404 points)

Bourdais appeared to have a pretty solid season, yet finished four places lower in the standings than he did last year - albeit with almost the same point score. Is that just a reflection of the close competition in the midfield?

PRUETT: No. It's a reflection of having to start over in 2016 with a crew that was almost entirely new to his No. 11 Chevy. Veteran engineer Bill Pappas also departed (to go to work for IndyCar), which meant that beyond race engineer Olivier Boisson and a few others, Bourdais was close to starting from scratch. The lack of continuity, and the absence of Pappas, made things harder than they should have been at too many events, and it showed in Seb finishing 14th in the championship - his worst full-season outcome since 2003.

MILLER: I think it's more a reflection of the competition, and the fact KVSH is even a lower-budgeted one-car team than RLL. One win, three appearances in the Fast Six and a couple of fifth places wouldn't be acceptable for Penske or Ganassi but, all things considered, it was about what could be expected in this case - even from a veteran with Seabass's resume.

Did KV cutting back to one car for 2016 make any difference to Bourdais' year?

PRUETT: No. Bourdais has always wanted a single-car KVSH effort where all of the resources were placed behind his car. He got his wish in 2016, but as we learned, those diminished resources turned their plans upside down. The goal was to replicate Graham Rahal's mighty one-car program, but the dollars weren't there to make it happen.

MILLER: Besides making him happier? No doubt he had the full focus of KVSH and that's about the only perk of a one-car effort nowadays. And when there's not a lot of sponsorship it makes sense to put it all behind your stud and not cut corners with a teammate. So, yes, it seemed to help.

Did he get the most out of his situation in 2016?

PRUETT: I think he did. It's an odd thing to say about a season when Bourdais ended the year directly ahead of Mikhail Aleshin (P15), Marco Andretti (P16), and Takuma Sato (P17) in the standings, but even a mercurial talent like Seb cannot overcome a significant resource deficit. That being said, he still won a race, earned three top fives, and captured 11 top 10 finishes. It speaks to a year of making a lot out of a little.

MILLER: Don't think he could have asked for much better results on ovals (fifth at Pocono, eighth and Iowa and Phoenix, ninth at Indy) since Milwaukee was no longer on the schedule, and they're not his cup of tea to begin with. His performance at Watkins Glen (qualified third and finished fifth despite a first-lap spin) was even more impressive than his Detroit victory (ABOVE), so my answer is yes.

Can he and Craig Hampson re-capture their magic at Coyne in 2017?

PRUETT: Absolutely. With a strong engineering team already in place, the addition of Seb and Hampson should equate to DCR having its strongest season to date.

MILLER: Seabass is still as good as anyone on a street course and a helluva road racer, so being re-united with Hampson should elevate Coyne instantly. The team used red tires early to advance in qualifying, but they likely won't need that as often with this pairing. Sure, when they ran roughshod in Champ Car from 2004-2007 the competition wasn't nearly as good or deep as it is today in IndyCar, and they won't have the resources from those Newman/Haas days. But they should be fun to watch in 2017.

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