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Sébastien Bourdais Returns to Dale Coyne Racing at Gateway

On Wednesday afternoon, Dale Coyne Racing announced that Sébastien Bourdais will return to the No. 18 Dallara this weekend at Gateway Motorsports Park.  Bourdais has been out since suffering a number of injuries in this crash during qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 back in May.

Bourdais suffered fractures to his pelvis and right hip in the crash.  At the time, Bourdais was considered to be out for the season.  That is no longer the case.

Bourdais is overjoyed to be back in the seat this weekend in Illinois.

“You have no idea how excited I am to be getting back in the car this weekend and for the remainder of the season,” Bourdais stated.  “It’s been a long 14 weeks and I’ve worked very hard to get to this point. Following the crash, I had one goal in mind and that was to be back for Sonoma, and here I am getting back in the car with three races to go. It’s a bit unbelievable but I can’t wait to try out that new surface at Gateway this weekend!”

Car owner Dale Coyne is very happy to have Bourdais back in the fold.

“It’s great to have Sebastien back, but I want to thank Esteban [Gutierrez] for the amazing job he did filling in for him these last few months,” Coyne said.  “It wasn’t easy for him coming in and having never driven an Indy car, but he did a fantastic job especially on the ovals. For someone that had never driven on an oval track before Iowa in July, he impressed a lot of people including myself. Hopefully we get to work with him again in the future.”

Prior to his crash, Bourdais was seventh in Verizon IndyCar Series points, 55 behind then-points leader Simon Pagenaud.  Bourdais won the season opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg and led the points for the first three races of the season.  Consecutive early DNFs dropped him from the top of the standings.

 

Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the site's FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site's Sports Car racing editor.

Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.