AUGUST 6, 2002

Bourdais and Arrows

There is talk that Sebastien Bourdais will give up his hopes of winning the International Formula 3000 title in order to take over Heinz-Harald Frentzen's drive at Arrows. Bourdais recently had a test with the team and while he might be happy to give up his hopes of winning the Formula 3000 in order to get into Formula 1 it is very unlikely that Super Nova Racing team boss David Sears will let his driver give away the team's chance to win another title. Bourdais's team mate Tiago Monteiro has not been on the pace at all this year and so is not a challenger for title honors.

There are really only three drivers in with a chance of winning the title: Bourdais with 46 points, Tomas Enge with 41 and Giorgio Pantano with 34. With three races remaining the title could go any way.

Sears's argument will be that if Bourdais wins the title he will have a much better chance of getting a drive next year. Bourdais may feel, however, that making a good impression in F1 will have the same effect.

Much depends of the contractual arrangements between the team and the driver as he might have a get-out clause in case an F1 drive comes up. Having said that as Bourdais is managed by Sears the arguments could become quite complicated.