Bourdais ranks among 2014 IndyCar title contenders

Sebastien Bourdais

Team Penske's Will Power, a three-time series championship runner-up, endorsed Sebastien Bourdais as a 2014 title contender. The four-time Champ Car champion won't dispute the forecast.

"I do feel like there is a lot of potential, unexplored potential," said Bourdais, who will drive the No. 11 KVSH Racing car. "Last year was an eye-opener when Tony (Kanaan) won the '500.' I think it's pretty much to the credit of KV. They worked very hard. They have a great group of guys who really love racing, which is not so easy to find. I could not put a strong enough point on saying that this group can win.

"I don't know how long it's going to take before we do it, but only because competition is so difficult in IndyCar these days. You look at the number of cars you need to beat to just get there, it's really hard. But at the end of the day everybody has the same equipment pretty much. It's just a matter of how you use it, how much work you put into it to get it right."

Bourdais closed the 2013 strong in a Dragon Racing car (four top-10 finishes in the final five races), and he's looking forward to the prospects this season.

"When I left Newman Haas (Racing) to go after that dream of mine in F1, there was no guarantee if I ever tried to come back getting a top seat," he said. "I knew once I left, I had taken a one-way ticket. It's not that I couldn't buy a return, but nothing was guaranteed. For the longest time it just felt like it was not meant to be. Hopefully, I'm going to prove myself wrong."