Sebastien Bourdais says he’s not ready to retire from top-level motorsport and is looking for new opportunities after admitting he will not be continuing with Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA in the FIA World Endurance Championship next year.
The four-time Champ Car champion has been a part of the American manufacturer’s lineup since the introduction of the Cadillac V-Series.R in 2023 but says Cadillac’s decision to favor fielding the same drivers in both the WEC and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship “kind of puts me out of a job.”
Cadillac WeatherTech Championship regular Ricky Taylor is making his first WEC start with the JOTA squad in this weekend’s Lone Star Le Mans contest and Sportscar365 understands he is likely to contest a full program next year when there are no clashes between the two series.
“It’s not easy to swallow,” Bourdais told Sportscar365. “It is what it is so definitely looking for opportunities next year.
“Hopefully there’s something that comes out because I don’t really look forward to retirement.
“It’s also not that easy at 48 to be a Platinum so it puts you in a bit of a weird place.
“We’ll see, obviously it’s early and open to pretty much anything but definitely not what I was hoping for.”
While Bourdais said he would “love” to remain in the top-tier of sports car racing next year, he does not believe there are any opportunities available for him to continue in either the WEC’s Hypercar class or the WeatherTech Championship’s GTP division.
If he fails to find a top-class drive it would leave Bourdais without the chance of securing an elusive outright victory in his home 24 Hours of Le Mans contest, after a fuse failure put the No. 38 Cadillac V-Series.R out when looking firmly in contention for this year’s win.
“I would love to be all optimistic about the prospects of staying in the top class and giving another chance at Le Mans and all of this, which obviously looked really good this year, but it doesn’t look very likely I will have another opportunity at winning Le Mans,” said Bourdais.
“I like to be realistic because I just don’t like disappointment. I’m not closing any doors, I’m not saying no to anyone, you just look at the grid and what’s available and who could potentially be interested and what’s the potential opportunity.”
Instead, Bourdais is open to a return to either the LMP2 or GT ranks, having contested the WeatherTech Championship’s LMP2 division last year with Tower Motorsports and he was previously part of the factory Ford Chip Ganassi Racing GTLM program.
“You talk IMSA, ELMS, WEC in GT potentially — I’ve obviously had plenty of good memories in GTs, LMP2s and whatever so it’s not like there’s no interest,” he added.
“It’s just a matter of finding a fun program where someone sees an interest in having me join the team, try and bring my experience and the speed I have and go from there.”
In the meantime, Bourdais says his future uncertainty “doesn’t change anything” for the rest of this season as he tries to power Cadillac to a first win of the season after several near-misses.
“You keep digging and try to win races and the best way to put yourself on the map and draw interest is to finally get a bit of a break and get some good results,” he said.
“We’ve shown plenty of pace in our races it’s just a matter of getting the one weekends [where everything comes together for victory].
“It’s a very important weekend for Cadillac [at COTA] so we would love to be able to put the brand on top of the podium here as it would be quite meaningful for the whole group.”
