Q & A with Sebastien Bourdais

Sebastien Bourdais: I think at Monaco it meant a bit more. But to come and race in front of your home crowd, on a one-off, is a bit special. There is going to be a lot of fans here. I never really though I would be in Formula One when I was a kid.

I was just having fun and then it became more and more serious. It wasn't something I was looking up to and saying: "I want to be there". It was a bit more basic than this and now it is reality and I just have to make the best of it and be as competitive as we can.

Q. Do we feel any pressure this weekend?

SB: The pressure is always there and you are the one who wants to do well. It doesn't matter where you are, for sure if you have a good strong result then it would mean a bit more than anywhere else. But if you put more effort in here than anywhere else then it means you are not giving 100% everywhere so that means you are not doing your job. So I am just going to drive the same way and do the best that I can, which is always what I do.

Q. Does Magny-Cours seems an anti-climax in terms of spectators for somebody who grew up in Le Mans?

SB: Where there were already about 200 people in front of the garage about half an hour ago so I don't think it is going to be anti-climatic. There is going to be a special section of grandstands in front of the garage and a lot of people from the fan club are going to be there. It is up to about 12% or something like that, so it probably isn't unrelated to the fact that I am here and that is great.

It doesn't have the prestige of the Le Mans 24 Hours, but it is still a great venue, and the grandstands are mostly packed on Sunday, and it is home so it doesn't matter.

Q. Do you like this circuit?

SB: Absolutely. I am not a big of fan of what they did to the last section, I think it is extremely slow and it breaks the rhythm. I actually liked the old last chicane a lot, but I drove it last year the Peugeot 908 and the track is quite loyal to what it used to be. It is very challenging, it's very contrasted. You have very slow corners and very high speed corners. You need a good car, you need to engage and you need to commit so it's quite fun. It's a bit tricky to pass in the race, but not worse than anywhere else.

Q. What about the future of the French Grand Prix, this race might not be here again?

SB: That's what they keep on saying but we are still here so I don't care about what they say. We will see what happens. I think there have good negotiations with the French government. France is a big nation, a big car producer and we need a French Grand Prix - it is as basic as that.

It doesn't matter whether is here or somewhere else. But if we are going to do it somewhere else then we are going to need a bit of time, and it is probably not going to happen overnight. Most definitely there is doubt over it for next year, but I personally hope that we will still be here next year, because we can't afford to have a blank year and not come to France. That would drop the interest, so we will see what happens.

Q. Where would you like to see the French Grand Prix staged in the future?

SB: It would have to be a new project anyway. The Le Mans Bugatti circuit is not a Formula One track and I don't think the ACO is very interested. They have a lot of events to put together already and there is really nowhere else where you could run a proper race. Paul Ricard is now very atypical and unusable for a F1 GP so it would have to be a new site and that is why I'm saying you need a bit of time. Because it is a huge undertaking, you need to find the right place, you need to build it and it is going to take some time. They are looking at it very closely and we will see what happens.

Q. Bernie wants it to go to Paris. What are your feelings on that?

SB: Well it won't be Paris, Paris. But I think it is probably the best option, but like I said it is still very complex. There are a lot of people involved, it's huge amount of money to find to get the project done, so let's wait and see.

Q. You're halfway through your first season, are you satisfied with where you are?

SB: No. We have had a disastrous last four races. It's been quite disappointing. We have been in positions where we could have run our own races and done quite well. Barcelona wasn't going so bad, and then Turkey wasn't going so bad until the pitstop and the brake failure. I had a dismal weekend in Montreal, and bad luck in Monaco when I aquaplaned with Fernando Alonso and David Coulthard.

It's part of the career of a race car driver. Sometimes it goes your way and sometimes it doesn't. You just need to keep on working, plug away, and see where you end up. For me it is very much the case that it's been a bit tough lately but at some point the wind is going to turn around and we just need to keep on doing what we do.

Q. But the pace is there though isn't it?

SB: Yeah. It's three-three with Sebastian in qualifying and it's really not about the pace. It's just that things are not going our way. In Montreal, if you want to judge me on my performance there then fine, but I don't know how to drive a Formula One car on gravel! Some guys succeeded, but for me it was a non-happening race.

I completely decided on my own to not race in these conditions, I nearly wrecked the car about 20 times just trying to bring it home.

For me it was a very stupid thing to do and I didn't play the game that's all.

Q. Last race couldn't have been much worse, so could this race see the start of something new?

SB: Yes. We have had a test session, we implemented a new aero package on the car. At least we have a starting point. When we showed up in Montreal we didn't even know anything about the rear wing, which we received on Tuesday. So we were starting with a set-up that we didn't know anything about. It is very difficult in these conditions. It was the same thing in Monaco, so obviously then you gamble, and sometimes you are right and sometimes you're wrong. We have just been wrong in these last few races, it's not the end of the world, but obviously in F1 you need to perform and nobody cares about the reasons.

As far as I am concerned it is behind us. Now we are going to have some consistency on the car, we can work on the set-ups and we are going to have some races where the specification of the cars are going to be very similar in France, England and Germany.

So from there we should be able to build up some experience, which has not been the case. We understood the STR2B really well and then we switched over and started from scratch so it is difficult when you have this plus it is your rookie season and you have a lot of things to learn. It's challenging for sure.