Sébastien Olivier Bourdais (born 28 February 1979) is a French professional racing driver, who resides in St. Petersburg, Florida. He is one of the most successful drivers in the history of American Championship car racing, having won 37 races. He won four successive championships under Champ Car World Series sanction from 2004 to 2007. He drove in Formula One for the Toro Rosso team during 2008, and the start of the 2009 season, returned to America in the united IndyCar Series in 2011, and has raced sports cars throughout his career, winning his home race, the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the GTE-Pro class in 2016. He is currently signed to drive the No. 5 JDC-Mustang Sampling Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R full-time in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the NTT Indycar Series part-time for AJ Foyt Enterprises in the 14.

Early years

Karting

Born into a racing family in Le Mans (his father Patrick races in touring cars, hill climbs, and sports cars), Bourdais began his racing career at age 10 in karts. During the early 1990s, he competed in a variety of karting championships, winning the Maine Bretagne League in 1991 and the Cadet France championship in 1993. Bourdais was part of the winning Sologne Karting team which won the 1996 24-hour Le Mans kart race at the Circuit Alain Prost on a Merlin chassis with Atomic motors.