New British endurance racing team, Vector Sport has signed Sébastien Bourdais, as a key part of its proposed LMP2 driver line up for the 2022 FIA World Endurance Championship. Bourdais will be teamed alongside the recently announced Nico Müller and a soon-to-be-revealed third driver for the team’s submitted ORECA 07-Gibson entry in what promises to be a very strong line-up.
The Frenchman has enjoyed huge success in all forms of motor racing, especially in North America where he remains one of Champ Car’s most winningest drivers in its history. He took four successive Champ Car World Series championship titles from 2004 to 2007, and has been a consistent challenger in IndyCar for the last 10 years.
As a driver born and bred in Le Mans, it comes as no surprise that Sébastien has raced sports cars throughout his career. He won his home race, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, for Ford Chip Ganassi Racing (LMGTE Pro class) in 2016, finished in second place overall two times for Peugeot Sport, and has twice won at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, once as the overall winner in 2014, and secondly as GTLM winner in 2017.
Signed for Cadillac Chip Ganassi Racing’s 2022 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship campaign, Séb will combine his races in North America with Vector Sport’s WEC season (except Sebring). This will be his first WEC season of racing since 2012 when he competed for Pescarolo Sport in LMP1.
Sébastien Bourdais: “It’s tough to know what expectations are realistic as LMP2 is such a big and competitive field but it’s a very exciting prospect. We are all similar in terms of equipment, I’ll be alongside some very cool dudes as my teammates, including Nico, and it’ll be a great experience running in the WEC.
“I got to know Gary Holland [Team Principal of Vector Sport] when he ran the Risi Competizione car for the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2020 so when he called me up I was instantly interested. It’ll be great to become more familiar with prototypes at Le Mans, and the Vector Sport programme complements the Cadillac CGR deal extremely well. I can’t wait to get started with my busy 2022 year ahead!”
Gary Holland, Team Principal of Vector Sport: “We are really excited to have Séb join us for our debut season. His huge amount of experience in all forms of racing will be a valuable asset to our young time and we would like to offer our thanks to Cadillac and Chip Ganassi Racing for allowing Séb to work with us throughout this WEC season.”
