Playing a waiting game: Exclusive interview with Sebastien Bourdais

Like Rubens Barrichello at Honda, Sebastien Bourdais is enduring a long wait while Scuderia Toro Rosso make up their mind about whether he is staying with them in 2008.

There is a difference in the two cases, however. At Toro Rosso, the departure of Sebastian Vettel means there is some sense in maintaining continuity with at least one driver, especially going into a season of complex rules changes. And while Rubens is approaching the end of his career, Bourdais has just finished his first year, and there's a case for giving him a second in order to allow him to take advantage of everything he's learned.

But, as ever in F1, the situation isn't quite so clear cut. It's hard to avoid the fact that for much of 2008 Bourdais struggled to match Vettel, who lest we forget, was himself in only his first full season - but then the younger Sebastian is one of the greatest talents to come along in years and would have given any teammate a hard time.

However, hard results, rather than unfulfilled potential, are what tend to count in F1. Add to that the fact that commercial considerations may eventually push the team towards Takuma Sato - who did pretty well in the recent Barcelona 'shootout' with Bourdais and Red Bull golden boy Sebastien Buemi - and the Frenchman's position doesn't look very tenable.

Just to confuse matters further, Gerhard Berger has parted company with STR. While the Austrian is a hard taskmaster when it comes to drivers, he was the guy who brought Bourdais in and, ultimately, he may have felt that Sebastien deserved a second season. Now he's gone the driver decision, even more than previously, will come from Red Bull.

Sebastien Bourdais and Nicolas Todt © LAT

On the plus side, Bourdais has a powerful ally in manager Nicolas Todt and those commercial pressures may ultimately work in his favour, if the son of the former Ferrari boss has a deal in the pipeline. It's no secret that ART co-owner Todt wants to get more deeply involved in F1.

Either way, Bourdais needs to know what's happening sooner rather than later. Even back in October he was stressed about the lack of a decision from the team, and insisted that he needed to know by Brazil if he was going to have to make alternative arrangements. Another month has passed and still we don't know what's happening.

Sebastien certainly wants another chance, because he knows he can do a better job than he did this year.

"It actually went a lot better to start with than I thought," he says of 2008. "We had a bit of a rough winter, mainly because we did some systematic changes and developed the car, and didn't worry too much about getting it to my liking. So it was a bit difficult, I was not too comfortable in the car. Sometimes it was on the pace and mostly it was not. People were starting to say Bourdais this, Bourdais that.

"Then the season started and we started to work on the set-up, found a few things, and it was a very even game with Sebastian [Vettel]. And people started to say, Bourdais - maybe he's ok."

Indeed in the early races, with an update of last year's car, he did a respectable job. Helped by a lucky break with the safety car in Australia, he ran at the sharp end of the field in the late stages of his debut race, until forced to retire. The high attrition rate at least earned him two points for seventh. Elsewhere, he compared well with Vettel in qualifying, although to be fair the latter didn't have much luck in the races.

"Then the STR3 came around. The first two races were just about discovering the car. We had a good race going on in Monaco, but unfortunately I got caught out by the aquaplaning and it was a missed opportunity. Then Montreal was just a non-event for me.

"Then the new aero package came on the car (in France) and it became harder. It made the car a lot quicker, there's no doubt about that. But it also made it a lot more pointy on entry, with a more nervous rear on entry to medium and slow corners, and quite a bit more understeer at high speed. Every time we were trying to help the rear on entry we were increasing massively the understeer at high speed, so we were really boxed in.

"It was one of those situations where you end up not being happy with the car at any point on the track and it's just difficult when you're not feeling good in the car to actually deliver. Sebastian is just not affected by loose cars on entry, so basically he was like a fish in the water since the car was in this configuration, and he was quite happy with it. And obviously the results follow."

Sebastien Bourdais puts the Toro Rosso STR3 through its paces in Monaco © XPB

Of course, to those of us who don't actually drive the things - and that includes team engineering personnel - it's easy to be cynical when a driver claims that a particular car doesn't suit his style. This year there seemed to be a rash of drivers with similar stories, notably Kimi Raikkonen, Heikki Kovalainen and Nick Heidfeld. An easy excuse from a driver who is being blitzed by his teammate? Well, don't forget that in 2007 Robert Kubica was similarly afflicted.

"It's actually very funny when you look at the evolution of one driver compared to his teammate, if they like cars different ways. It happened with Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher at Toyota for many years. Every time there was one happy, the other was unhappy. Every time they would make a change and transform the character of the car, it was the other way round again. I think it summarises the situation very well. With these cars you have to be comfortable and confident in them, otherwise you just don't deliver."

In America, Bourdais was known for his ability to tinker away, honing his setup until it was just so. And when it was right for him, he was pretty hard to beat. For most of this year he never felt close to comfortable and that was a big blow to his confidence.

"I knew there was going to be no easy fix. Obviously for the first two or three races of that package we tried to find solutions setup wise, and lost a lot of time doing so. Then, once we understood there was no solution with the set-up, we just basically took the pill on and accepted that it was going to be this way, and just tried to make little changes to optimise things. But it's never nice when you start the weekend and you already know beforehand that you're going to get kicked out. It definitely got a bit frustrating after Magny-Cours.

"There was no match any more with Sebastian, he was very happy with the car and I was terribly uncomfortable, really unable to do what I wanted to do in the car. And after that I was struggling massively.

"The car potential went up quite dramatically in comparison with the others, and even I looked quite decent in terms of position, but the gap with Sebastian was quite consistent. Only in rain conditions, and maybe at Spa, we were a bit quicker - but that was mostly due to track characteristics. So it definitely proved to be quite a bit harder than I would have liked.

"But with the little changes and evolutions they found on the car, it went a bit towards my direction in the last few races. It was a bit more stable on entry and that helped me to get closer to my window of operation."

On the plus side, Bourdais unexpectedly found himself in a winning car, or at least a top six car. Surely that was something that he could not have envisaged when he decided to abandon the US and take his chance with STR?

"It's funny you should say that. In the end, F1 is in such a way that it would have been much better for me if we had a car with which I was just as happy as Sebastian, being able to be very close to him, maybe even if it was only for P12.

"If your teammate is flying and winning a race and scoring points pretty much week in, week out, and you're struggling, you look like an idiot.

Sebastien Bourdais and Sebastian Vettel congratulate each other on their points finishes in the Belgian Grand Prix © XPB

"People are only looking at teammate's comparisons, so it's not good for you. It's just the way it is. So I'm not so sure it was a good thing for me. It was a good thing for team and I'm obviously happy for them, but for me it was definitely not the ideal scenario.

"Valencia was probably the worst qualifying for me, because Sebastian was P1 in Q2, and I was P10. That was the biggest gap up to then. That's what I mean; people only see results in the end, because that's the big picture. And if you really don't take the time to analyse everything and look at what's happening, with which tyres in which conditions, it's very unreadable.

"F1 is probably the most unreadable series you can find, because it's so affected by weight and tyres, and driver feel and comfort. I felt I did my job with the STR2B, because I was quite comfortable. I could attack, I could do what I felt I needed to do, and with the STR3 it was always a situation where you are your own enemy, because if you attack like you'd like to, you just basically dig your own hole. It was never quite comfortable."

Luck didn't exactly favour Sebastien either. When things did begin to look up, inevitably fate would intervene. He was fourth on the grid at Monza but didn't get away to start the formation lap. At Spa, a great weekend was spoiled when the rain came in the closing laps and he fell from fifth to seventh. And a good charge at Fuji was spoiled when he was controversially penalised after a bump with Felipe Massa.

"Overall, it's been quite a difficult season. Every time or pretty much every time that we've had an opportunity to score a good result, there's been something going in the way. The first race, Spa, Monza, Fuji - it's just never quite materialised.

"I think the strongest race we had was probably Spa, we were in a solid fifth place with a damaged front wing, which looked quite good, I have to say. I had a completely anonymous race at Monza, but had we not been a lap down we would probably have finished in between P3 and P5. So for sure there will be a lot of regrets, but you can't live with regrets, you've just got to look forwards. Melbourne was a typical case of keeping your head cool and just doing the job with the car, which was obviously not on the pace.

"Then we had a lot of races where I think I did well, but it never quite really showed. If you're 13th or 15th, or you don't catch the right train... And we've had quite a few incidents."

By modern standards, Bourdais was not a typical rookie. He was more than qualified to step into an F1 race seat way back in 2003 after winning the F3000 title, but instead spent five years in Champ Car. And yet, despite that wealth of experience, even he found life tough.

"F1 is very special, atypical in many respects. Things change a lot, quite often, and you don't really have control of what's happening. Where I've been in one-make series, with fixed regulations for many years, you just optimise little things, step by step. Because the cars are adjustable, you can really get it to your liking.

"Here, it's more of a question that you need to be a bit lucky and the car needs to suit you to really express yourself. Once the car is designed and introduced, there's not so much you can really do to it. It's so aero-dictated that if the characteristics of the aero map are not the way they need to be for you, then - sorry!"

Sebastien Bourdais leads the Williams of Nico Rosberg in the Chinese Grand Prix © LAT

Bourdais says he didn't feel any extra pressure as the end of the season approached.

"No, because the option the team had on me was late July. Once we introduced the new car, I knew I was not going to be a happy camper. It was quite clear that they would not take the option and it would be a delayed decision."

He agrees that providing continuity is one good reason to keep him on: "It helps for sure. But there are a lot of open questions in terms of finances and everything. It's not easy when you're not a constructor - even when you are it's not easy.

"You can't really blame them. I've not been doing what I personally wanted to do, and the problem in this whole world is that nobody cares about reasons or excuses or whatever, it's purely results."

He's well aware that commercial considerations may play a part in determining who drives.

"I hope not, because it would be sad. It's exactly the situation that F1 seemed to be able to run away from, and it would, I think, be a really bad thing if it was to come down to this. Maybe eventually that's what will happen. I can't even start to ask that question to myself, I'm just trying to do my job."

Michael Andretti, Alex Zanardi, Cristiano da Matta. The list of Champ Car stars who failed to realise their dreams in grand prix racing goes on - will Bourdais be joining it?

"Like I've said many times, I've had a career before F1 and I will have a career whatever happens after this season. I'd like it to be in F1, for sure. I picked up my phone and looked around and I've got some idea of what could be out there.

"This is the reason why I have to ask for an answer at some point. For sure, outside of F1 there aren't so many series that can really give you the fun that you're looking for and the kind of salary you can hope for.

"Doors are open for only so long and at some point you've got to say 'ok boys, here's what I've got, and if I wait any longer I take the chance to lose that'. It's always a give and take game. Whatever happens, I'll be thankful to Gerhard and Franz (Tost), because they gave me the opportunity to race in F1."