Bourdais expects difficult race, attacks aero package
KVSH Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais says the difficulty he expects in passing today at Toronto is indicative of the problem IndyCar has with its current aero package on road and street courses.
Sébastien Bourdais, KV Racing Technology Chevrolet
IndyCar Series
The Frenchman told Motorsport.com that he didn’t expect to beat Scott Dixon’s pole position time in qualifying, but was annoyed that he didn’t get a fourth timed lap in Q3 as he believes he could have been starting third rather than fifth. Giving up those two places, he believes could make a crucial difference to today’s race result because it’s now so hard to pass.
“We didn’t have anything for pole, we were two or three tenths off,” he admitted, “but we should have done better than fifth for sure. But we screwed ourselves – sat on pit lane too long. We only had time to do one lap on the newer set of reds in the final session. So that’s a little bit frustrating.
“So now it’s going to be difficult to pass. The red [tires] are degrading really, really quick, if you push them hard, you can lose 1sec to 1.5sec per lap, because of the new section [Toronto’s revised Turn 8/9/10 complex]. Because it’s tighter than before, it’s slower. So you’re putting so much stress on the tire because there’s more braking, accelerating, cornering, it’s hurting the rears.
“Plus these cars are already so hard to race right now; the amount of downforce you lose is just crazy. With all the elements we have attached to the rear wing, the wake behind is just monstrous.
“It’s not like you can’t run close. You can’t even get to the guy ahead, because you lose so much downforce, so early. And now, because of the configuration of the car, we even get loose as well. Normally the problem is understeer, right? But with this car, we actually get really loose at the rear, which means you lock rear tires, lose rear-end stability and burn off the rear tires even quicker.
“It used to be where if you wanted to follow someone through a corner, you could be offset just half a car width, because the rear wing of the guy in front was stretched just between his rear wheels.
“Now with all this **** added above and around the rear wheels, you have to be offset a full car width to get some clean air over your car.”
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