page_title: Sébastien Bourdais
section_title: Toro Rosso
hierarchical_section_title: Sébastien Bourdais / Formula One career / Toro Rosso
caption_attribution_description: English: Sébastien Bourdais at 2009 Malaysian Grand Prix, Sepang, Malaysia.
context_page_description: Sébastien Olivier Bourdais is a French professional racing driver, who resides in St. Petersburg, Florida. He is one of the most successful drivers in the history of American Championship car racing, having won 37 races. He won four successive championships under Champ Car World Series sanction from 2004 to 2007.
  He drove in Formula One for the Toro Rosso team during 2008, and the start of the 2009 season, returned to America in the united IndyCar Series in 2011, and has raced sports cars throughout his career, winning his home race, the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the GTE-Pro class in 2016.
  He is currently signed to drive the No. 5 JDC-Mustang Sampling Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R as full-time in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, and the No. 14 car for AJ Foyt Enterprises as part-time in the NTT Indycar Series.
context_section_description: Bourdais returned to F1 in 2007 after being given several tests with Scuderia Toro Rosso. On 10 August 2007 it was announced Bourdais would replace Vitantonio Liuzzi at Red Bull's b-team, Toro Rosso, as team-mate to Sebastian Vettel. On 16 March 2008 Bourdais competed in his first Formula One Championship race, the 2008 Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. After qualifying in 17th position he took advantage of mistakes made by other drivers, in the first Formula One race since the 2001 San Marino Grand Prix without traction control, and worked his way up to fourth. However, with three laps remaining an engine problem forced Bourdais to retire, but he was still classified 8th having completed more than 90% of the race distance. He later inherited seventh place (and two Championship points) after the disqualification of Rubens Barrichello.
  Bourdais qualified ninth for the Belgian Grand Prix. During the race he quickly gained places and held on to fifth place for much of the distance, getting as high as 3rd and was on course for a podium position. As the rain fell harder on the last lap he was overtaken by several cars on wet tyres and finished 7th. After the race an emotional Bourdais was close to tears following the result. This marked his best weekend of the season and his first World Championship points since Melbourne.
  Bourdais qualified in fourth place for the 2008 Italian Grand Prix. However, his car would not select first gear on the grid and had to start from the pit lane, a lap down (as the race started behind the safety car, there was no warm-up lap). Although he eventually finished a lap behind the race winner, team-mate Vettel, he set the second fastest lap of the race; only Ferrari's Kimi Räikkönen went faster. At the 2008 Japanese Grand Prix he was 6th on the road, but received a 25-second penalty for causing an avoidable accident with Felipe Massa dropping him to 10th. Few agreed with the decision – ITV Sport's Martin Brundle had stated during live TV coverage of the race that he felt Massa might receive a penalty, whilst his colleague James Allen stated that 99% of experts he spoke to felt that Bourdais did not deserve a penalty; the FIA were under such public scrutiny at the time following a string of controversial decisions that they made the unprecedented step of releasing publicly "stewards only" footage of the incident, to justify the decision.
  Bourdais tested significantly for the Toro Rosso team during the winter, though he was uncertain of a drive heading into the new year. On 6 February 2009 however he was confirmed as a Toro Rosso driver for a second year, partnering Swiss rookie Sébastien Buemi. Despite two points finishes in the year at the Australian Grand Prix and in Monaco, Bourdais struggled to match his less experienced team-mate. In Spain Bourdais struck Buemi's car as the field attempted to avoid a spun Jarno Trulli on the first lap, ending the race for both drivers. At the British Grand Prix Bourdais collided with McLaren driver Heikki Kovalainen, again ending the race for both. At the German Grand Prix he suffered a mechanical failure after qualifying last by over a second.
  On 16 July 2009, Toro Rosso announced that Bourdais would no longer be driving for the team. Toro Rosso's Franz Tost said the partnership had not met up to his expectations, and Bourdais would be replaced as of the Hungarian Grand Prix. Bourdais was advised by counsel to file suit for breach of contract by Toro Rosso, as he had a viable case. Toro Rosso settled the matter with a $2.1 million payment Bourdais to avoid  litigation.
caption: Bourdais driving for Toro Rosso at the 2009 Malaysian Grand Prix.
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