Bourdais back on track after Indy shunt recovery

The Frenchman lost control of his Dale Coyne Racing car on the third of his four laps of qualifying on May 20 and crashed against the wall at very high speed.

A force of 118G was recorded in the crash.

Bourdais underwent surgery for fractures in his pelvis and a broken hip and was discharged from hospital five days after the accident.

Although team boss Dale Coyne had ruled out Bourdais for the season, the Frenchman made his return to the cockpit during IndyCar testing at Mid-Ohio on Monday.

Bourdais said, however, that he was treating the test as an "evaluation day" and insisted there was no date set for his return to racing.

"I wouldn't be here and getting back in a car if I wasn't ready, but for now, it's just testing, we'll see how it goes, it's kind of an evaluation day," Bourdais said ahead of the test.

"I know that after this, the cars get transferred to ovals [spec] and everything. The doctors were okay with me getting back in the car on the 15th, and they said that two weeks were not going to make a big difference.

"Physically, I'm feeling good, so we'll give it a shot because after that we get to two ovals, timing gets a bit crazy, and I'm probably not going to get an opportunity to test."

He added: "Actually I was mowing the lawn yesterday! I'm feeling really good, rehab turned into workouts pretty quick, and we're definitely seeing a lot of progress.

"It's not linear, the guys in St. Pete taking care of me have done a really good job, we have kind of been pushing each other within limits, it was definitely good to just get on the bike and do everything more normal.

"We had worked on trying to reduce the muscle loss and all that, and it worked. From there, the time to get back to 100 percent diminished rapidly.

"That was the big thing for me, once I got to the point of being able to walk, get some feel again, build some muscles, get my butt cheeks back and stabilizing the hip, it was all good."

The next IndyCar race takes place at Pocono on August 20.

Additional reporting by Michael Duforest