Recovering Bourdais starts his racing rehab tonight

Bourdais learned a valuable lesson from his brutal wreck during qualifying at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Don’t ignore the signs. 

The mistake proved costly for the 38-year-old Frenchman who fractured his pelvis and right hip on May 20 when his car slammed into the Turn 2 wall with a 118G force. This weekend’s Bommarito Auto Group 500 marks Bourdais’ first race in the #18 Dale Coyne Racing-Honda since the GP of Indy in mid-May.

The shunt came when the Frenchman was looking like a pole position contender for the 101^st Indianapis 500. The little DCR team had looked like a giant-killer since the start of the season, when Bourdais had wound up in Victory Lane at St. Petersburg, but the majority of Seb’s 36 wins – sixth in Indy car racing’s all-time list – had come on road and street courses. The real indicator of how far Coyne’s squad had come since hiring Bourdais and race engineer Craig Hampson in the offseason came at Indy.

With the two fastest laps of the day, Bourdais’ four-lap run on Saturday, May 20, was set to easily send him into the Fast Nine shootout. But he never completed his third. Despite already feeling the rear twitch as he pitched the car into Turn 1, when it did the same in Turn 2, Bourdais kept his foot in the gas.

“I got caught up in the moment, and I paid for it,” Bourdais said at Gateway Motorsports Park on Friday. “So probably don't want to do that again.

“But you know, I guess you grow into it at every stage of your career…Hopefully by the time I hit 40, I'll have wisdom again.”

Bourdais' return to racing came a little sooner than he expected, having originally gone against Coyne’s wishes to sit out the remainder of the 2017 schedule, and thus allow himself some off-season leeway. No, said Bourdais, he wanted to be back in the car for the season finale in Sonoma. And yet… here he is, three races from the end of the season, and ready to roll.

Bourdais knew, however, that he shouldn’t try and rush the process. The rehabilitation wasn’t a cakewalk, but Bourdai worked hard and insists he was “well-behaved” until doctors gave him the green light.

“You know, bones – there's nothing you can do,” Bourdais said. “You just have to let it heal. I worked hard at rehab to make sure that I wasn't losing muscle mass and strength and all of that, but when you don't have weight-bearing, you can't do very much. So from six weeks onward, it turned into much more intensive workouts, and it turned into really real workouts instead of rehab. So that was good, and it was good for the spirit, as well.

“And then I think when you start regaining weight-bearing, as well, you motivate and encourage bone growth, as well, and the bone reacted really well, because from six-and-a-half weeks to August 15th, the bone has like doubled in size almost. It was pretty strong. So for sure things accelerated from there. But I can't say I really had so much to do with it. You have the bone part, and then you can only deal with the muscle part.”

Bourdais stills suffers pain and sensitivity from his injuries – not so much in the car – but in his daily activities. If he tries to run, he pays the price the next day. But nothing is as therapeutic as being inside a racecar. 

His first test came at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course following the race on July 30. Bourdais said he could run 80 laps, and still be fastest at the end of a run. He was encouraged by his progress.

But there was one last hurdle to climb talking to team owner Dale Coyne, who had enlisted the services of ex-Formula 1 driver, Esteban Gutierrez while Bourdais was sidelined. But earlier this week, in a late move that surprised even the parties involved, the situation flipped in Seb’s favor.

“[Dale] didn’t want to talk about a comeback until it was real,” Bourdais said. “Obviously, there were contractual things to deal with. Thanks to Dale, he could get things resolved, and I got my seat back.” 

Bourdais qualified only 19^th for this weekend’s race, approximately 1mph from teammate Ed Jones’ pace, while in race trim the pair were just 0.1mph apart. Seb admitted that he had slightly underperformed, that there was more to come from the car. But let's not forget just how huge an achievement it is for him to even be back in the car here. And once the adrenaline kicks in at the drop of the green flag tonight, his rehab will continue almost subconsciously.

The next step will be to put the mega-crash story behind him for good, get back on the limit at Watkins Glen and Sonoma Raceway and answer his own questions about his performance. Then, when the Verizon IndyCar Series returns to St. Petersburg in 2018, he can simply concentrate on racing – and defending that victory. 

“Hopefully, that crash will be a distant memory by the time we get to next year,” Bourdais said. “If I didn’t make it back this year, then everyone would have been wondering and questioning where I was mentally, physically and everything else going into the ’18 season. 

“The fact that I’m going to be back, and hopefully perform at a high standard, that kind of just puts everything behind us and everyone is just content with my ability to get the job done. That’s the goal, to get back to it and look like nothing ever happened.”