IMSA: MOBIL 1 TWELVE HOURS OF SEBRING PRESENTED BY CADILLAC

March 16, 2024

Sebastien Bourdais

Scott Dixon

Renger Van Der Zande

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We have our second-place finishers here in today's Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring presented by Cadillac, Sebastien Bourdais, Renger van der Zande and Scott Dixon. This is the team's third podium here at Sebring in the last six years.

Seb, obviously you guys had a pretty strong day throughout, then there at the end, do you want to take us through what went down there from your seat?

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Yeah, I think the whole Cadillac and Ganassi team did a great job. It was maybe not as straightforward as we would have liked. We had some electronics at some point. You saw the car slowing down. I was really worried this was going to happen again. Maybe that's it's the race.

It was a little more straightforward than that. Everybody did a really good job, executed. I think the moment where the 40 seemingly lost the race, because of the dirty wind stream behind the 10, they had to pit early and out of sync. They proved to be too strong for us. Hats off to those guys.

It was a good day, good points day, but it's always disappointing to win the race like that in the closing laps.

THE MODERATOR: Scott, pretty solid day all things considered. Your thoughts?

SCOTT DIXON: It's always an action-packed race. I had a ton of fun out there, as Seb kind of spoke of. About five hours to go, four hours to go, some electronics. But we seemed to get that worked out.

Pretty good pace. I don't think we had the extreme pace of some of the other cars. I think we did everything we could have. We tried to stay out of trouble. Team did a fantastic job, strategy they nailed. Ultimately at the end we came up a little bit short, which is frustrating.

Got to thank Seb. He did a tremendous job. It's always tough in those situations. Of course we wanted to go slightly different, but that's the way it rolls sometimes.

THE MODERATOR: Renger, from your perspective, a good points today. Tough to think about. At the same time getting a little bit of early momentum.

RENGER VAN DER ZANDE: Yeah, I mean, this is IMSA racing. That's why we love it. This time we were on the wrong side of the prize. I think the hard fight with the traffic. That last hour in Sebring is always spectacular, like it was again now.

They did a great job. They had fantastic pace in the car to win this race. I can only say Seb took the most out of our car, that's for sure. It's cool to see him go, how he's fighting till the end to make it happen.

Hey, second place, good points, champagne showers. Let's go home for prepare for Long Beach.

THE MODERATOR: We'll go to questions.

Q. Seb, when was the last time you had the electrical issues?

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Yeah, I don't know. We kind of had an EBS failure time and time again. We tried to do some defaults and every time it came back. We cleared it, then the motor stopped coming out of seven. That's where we lost the three spots to the two Acuras and the BMW.

Yeah, got going again. We never heard of it anymore. That was kind of weird. I honestly don't really remember when it was. It was my second time in the car during my second stint. The rear brakes started to get on fire, the rear tire pressures take off. Didn't look pretty for a minute.

But the guys did a great problem. They debugged the problem and found a solution, we got going and are there in the end. That's all you can ask for.

Q. Seb, I just saw your quick quote. Did you think the racing at the end could have been a little cleaner?

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Louis seems to think that I was the instigator. I'm a little shocked. Definitely, that was way too many contacts. Both sides of the floor, toward the rear, are significantly damaged. I think we can both be pretty lucky it didn't rip a stem of a wheel 'cause we probably could have picked up a puncture four or five times during the last few laps there.

Yeah, I'm not really accustomed to that and not a big fan of it. To be honest, I don't think he needed it because he had so much pace anyways. Hats off to them anyways. They had the package at the end to make the difference. We just had to settle for second.

Q. Renger, knowing that the Ganassi collaboration with Cadillac is coming to an end at the end of the season, does that relieve the pressure, nothing to lose at this point?

RENGER VAN DER ZANDE: I mean, I'm here to win, man. That's the only answer I can give. Every time I'm in that race car, I'm going to try to extract the most out of it, try to win races together with my team, Ganassi.

It was a bit of a shock. Bit of a surprise and all that. At the end we're focused on what we do today. Today was racing in Sebring. When we get to Long Beach, that's what we focus on, try to win that one, then we look ahead in the future.

For now, yeah, that's it.

Q. You definitely had the pace very early on. Was it the mechanical problems or just balance of the car changing into the night that maybe put the 40 on a little more equal footing?

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: No, I don't think so. I think we don't play any games. I think if you look at the race, both Acuras had a lot of pace. They were quite a bit faster on the fastest lap. We managed the tires very well over the double stints we had to do, both Scott, Renger and I, managed to keep the degradation in check.

When they turned it up, we simply didn't have anything for them.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, guys.