Sebastien Bourdais says Cadillac still needs to improve after its factory cars started the 2025 Le Mans 24 Hours from first and second but dropped out of the podium positions.
The #12 and #38 Jota entries lacked pace in the early stages of the contest, getting overtaken by the #5 Porsche in the very first minute of racing and plummeting out of the top 10 by the end of the third hour.
They subsequently gained competitiveness, and the #12 car driven by Alex Lynn, Norman Nato and Will Stevens took fifth under the chequered flag – fourth following the #50 Ferrari’s disqualification.
The sister #38 car, meanwhile, suffered from a front-left puncture, penalties for crossing the white line at pit entry and cutting a corner, and a trip through the gravel by Bourdais – but was still classified in seventh, just one lap down.
Asked by Autosport if that was a better race than he feared, the Le Mans native replied: “No. I was hoping we’d be, lap-time-wise, more competitive, but we all knew it would actually be hard.
“We need to keep improving. We’re not where we should be. We’re very fast when the track is very rubbered-in, when we have little fuel, when there’s mega grip on new tyres, but on long runs we degrade tyres too much. We’re not where you need to be to win a WEC race, basically.”
Bourdais was at the wheel during the pit entry incident, which he strongly disagreed with race control about.
“When they close the pitlane to our face and then say ‘well, you cut the white line’… If you go to the pitlane, you have to do an emergency stop that costs an extra stop. When you see the cross [at pit entry], your instinct is to back out of pitting,” the veteran insisted.
“This is anecdotal, but it’s like the yellow flags that are waved in the middle of the night, which you can’t see. I don’t know how many guys got penalties because they didn’t slow down. On the straight, there’s no one. The [stricken] car wasn’t even on the track.
“The problem is, [stewards] don’t quite understand what we do, and that’s costly.”
Bourdais still set the fastest lap of the race by some margin, with a 3m26.063s that was 0.499s clear of anyone else – seemingly confirming what the Cadillac V-Series.R could do when it was able to exploit its potential in high-speed corners.
“It was perfect timing – the end of a stint on new tyres”, the Frenchman pointed out. “The tyres were in their best possible condition, I had no fuel and not a car to overtake. It doesn’t happen often, but on that lap, ‘here we go, let’s have some fun!’. It’s a little bit of a consolation prize.”
“A really solid start to a long-term project” – Jota
While the factory Cadillacs were run by Chip Ganassi Racing last year, this time around the American brand turned to British outfit Jota, which entered two Porsches as a privateer in 2024.
Team principal Sam Hignett hailed “a really solid start to a long-term project”, with potential updates to be tested in the next few months, as “there’s a lot more to find in the car”.
The way the Cadillacs picked up pace after dropping down the order in the first few hours of the Le Mans contest was intriguing, but as Hignett explained: “I think we hadn't optimised a few bits and pieces in the longer race runs. The practice sessions were so disjointed with all the red flags, we really were learning on the hoof a bit.
“It wasn't until that third stint that we unlocked a couple of things, discovered a couple of things, and then could build some pace into the cars. It didn't help that it was all so disjointed through the practice sessions.”
Asked, if someone had offered a top-five finish a week before the race, if he would have signed for it, Hignett acknowledged: “Yeah, I think so. I think you'd take top five. It's crazy competitiveness, isn’t it? It's unbelievable what's happening out there. The level of the drivers and the teams, it's really something very special.”
