Craig Hampson Tag

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer If there ever was a Rubik’s Cube of an oval, it would have to be Pocono Raceway. A two and a half mile superspeedway with three straightaways of differing lengths and corners of differing radii and banking gives every engineer throughout the Indy car paddock their biggest oval racing setup challenge of the year. The No. 18 Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan entry performed well last year at Pocono. Driver Sebastien Bourdais finished fourth with race engineer Craig Hampson helping get the setup right, butRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer BIRMINGHAM, Alabama– An originally-planned two-stop strategy was Sebastien Bourdais’ best chance to win Sunday’s Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama at Barber Motorsports Park for the NTT IndyCar Series. At least, that’s what his race engineer Craig Hampson thought. “We probably aren’t going to win the race just doing the same thing as everybody else so let’s try to do something different and win the race,” said Hampson. Team owner Dale Coyne said to the team that Bourdais was committed to running the strategy and theRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer AUSTIN, Texas– Sebastien Bourdais did not have a good practice or qualifying ahead of Sunday’s INDYCAR Classic at Circuit Of The Americas but sometimes luck can fall your way in the NTT IndyCar Series and that’s exactly what happened for the Frenchman. The No. 18 Sealmaster Honda for Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser/Sullivan started off 17th out of 24 cars and got up to 15th on the first lap of the race. While overtaking may have been a bit of a premium, Bourdais was on theRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer ST. PETERSBURG — Two-time defending race winner and St. Petersburg resident Sebastien Bourdais left Friday’s practice for the opening round of the 2019 NTT IndyCar Series season with a bit of frustration ahead of Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. The Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser/Sullivan driver was 11th in the first Friday practice session and 18th in the second practice session and the No. 18 Sealmaster Honda was not handling the way Bourdais wanted it to. “We know what’s not working, we just don’tRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer Motorsports Tribune reviews the season of the top 12 drivers from the 2018 Verizon IndyCar Series championship. Our list continues with the seventh-place finisher, Sebastien Bourdais. Sebastien Bourdais, No. 18 Sealmaster Honda 2018: 7th in the championship  Wins: 1, Top 5: 5, Top 10: 8, Poles: 1, Laps Led: 108 Best Finish: 1st (St. Petersburg) After a strong start to the season with a victory at St. Petersburg and pole at Phoenix, it’s hard to picture a better start to the 2018 IndyCar season for SebastienRead More

 By Christopher DeHarde, IndyCar & Road to Indy Writer Dale Coyne Racing has announced that Esteban Gutierrez will pilot the No. 18 and making his Verizon IndyCar Series debut for the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix in place of the injured Sebastien Bourdais, who was injured in a qualifying accident for the Indianapolis 500. The 25-year old Mexican drove in Formula One in 2013 and ’14 for Sauber, with a best finish of seventh in the 2013 Japanese Grand Prix. He spent 2015 as the reserve driver for Ferrari, before getting the callRead More

By Josh Farmer, IndyCar Reporter Age: 37 Years in IndyCar: 11 Podiums: 52 Wins: 35 Championships: 4 Laps led: 2,227 2016 Team: KV Racing 2017 Team: Dale Coyne Racing Sebastien Bourdais has all the makings of a return to top form in 2017. During his three-year stint at KV Racing, the four-time Champ Car Champion scored wins at Toronto (2014), Detroit and Milwaukee (2015) and Detroit in (2016). He ended the 2017 season 14th in the standings but scored nearly as many points as he did the last two years when he finishedRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, IndyCar & Road to Indy Writer Wednesday’s announcement that Sebastien Bourdais would be joining Dale Coyne Racing for 2017 and 2018 campaigns in the Verizon IndyCar Series should put some people on notice because Bourdais wasn’t the only person Coyne has hired for next season. Besides bringing in Bourdais, Dale Coyne made two hires for the engineering side of his team.  Olivier Boisson will be joining the team after being Bourdais’s engineer at KVSH Racing the last few seasons while Bourdais’s engineer at Newman-Haas Racing, Craig Hampson,Read More