Bourdais is a four-time Champ Car title-winner who amassed 31 wins over the final five years of the series, before a brief foray into Formula 1. He returned to the U.S. open-wheel scene full time in 2013, and between ’14 and ’18 he added six IndyCar victories.
Last year he raced for AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet, and even after signing full-time for Chip Ganassi Racing’s Cadillac team in the 2022 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, the veteran Frenchman offered to continue part-time for Foyt when his sportscar commitments allowed.
However, with Foyt signing Indy Lights champion Kyle Kirkwood and re-signing Dalton Kellett, Bourdais’ opportunities appear limited. The team has added Tatiana Calderon in a third car, the #11, for all road and street courses, but the oval driver for that entry should soon be confirmed as JR Hildebrand.
St. Petersburg-based Bourdais did however attend the IndyCar season-opener to assist rookie Kirkwood on his debut.
“I was just there for one weekend, being local, and now they are going to give it their best shot for the IndyCar season,” said Bourdais. “I’ve done for many years open wheel combined in some sort with GT and Prototypes and I’ve had quite a few things in between.
“I knew I wasn’t going to do IndyCar forever; I don’t know if I’ll be doing a couple of races at the end of year or not. That still is to be seen, but it doesn’t look super-likely If it’s not, then the natural transition toward sports car racing is going to be complete.
“You never know. Helio is 46 and I’m only 43, so I guess we’ll find out.”
Assessing Kirkwood’s performance, Bourdais remarked: “Kyle is a really good kid and was jumping in that #14 car and we were talking after Daytona and I said, ‘If you want me to be there, I can try to be another set of eyes and answer your questions, and he said it would be really cool if I could be there.’
“I don’t know if I did any good or not, but I was there to give him a hand and tell him what I thought was going on and try to anticipate what was coming at him for that first IndyCar weekend.
“He sure was doing well. It was a shame that he ended up getting hosed by that yellow. He deserved quite a bit better than 18th.”
