Bourdais Unfazed by IROC Failure

Bourdais became the first single-seater driver to win the one make stock car series in eight years at the previous round at Texas Motor Speedway. However, after being drawn eleventh on the grid at Richmond, the Frenchman couldn't repeat the success and crashed out following an incident with Busch Series Champion Martin Truex Jr.

Bourdais told Autosport-Atlas: "We were always going to be on the back foot because the NASCAR boys are experts at this type of racing, and they know how to get you in trouble, or just get rid of you; it's what they do every weekend. But that's fine: it's not easy and I wouldn't want it to be. If I have the chance to do it next year, I will."

"We got to fifth after a couple of good restarts, but the car was not handling well, so I was damaging the tyres, and it was hard to keep my momentum going. It was taking longer and longer before I could get the power down on the exits of the turns."

"On the final restart I got up to fourth, but then I got hit, and Martin Truex Jr came round the outside of me and wasn't too generous with the amount of room he gave me. So we banged panels for a bit and I ended up spinning and hitting the wall on Turn Four.

"It didn't feel like a big hit, but it was enough to put us out."