Bourdais finally gets time in Lotus

Sebastien Bourdais was chatting about relocating his family back to St. Petersburg, Fla., the mild Midwest winter and already the time changing (remember to spring ahead March 10) when he asked for the time.

"Gotta go," he said as the Lotus Dragon Racing car on the pit lane of Sebring International Raceway was ready for a romp on the 1.67-mile 11-turn circuit in the morning session of the final day of an IZOD IndyCar Series Open Test.

Bourdais, getting his first track action for the team, was among 15 drivers to pile up laps. Dario Franchitti, driving the No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing car, topped the time chart with a quick lap of 52.1464 seconds. Rubens Barrichello (52.1615) of KV Racing Technology was second and JR Hildebrand of Panther Racing was third (52.2068).

Bourdais put in 69 effective laps with a best of 53.2993 seconds before handing over the keys to teammate Katherine Legge for the afternoon session.

"The car is fine," he said. "It's just a new car and we’ve got to figure it out.

"It’s more what I’m used to and what my job is rather than worrying if we’re going to get the car on the track. So nothing is ideal. We would have loved to get more done, but at least I will show up in St. Pete having done some laps in the car. And knowing a little bit, making sure the car was right and was doing everything it was expected to do, and to get the communication going with the engineers is what we need to address and to get the communication going with Lotus as well."

The IZOD IndyCar Series season-opening Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg is March 23-25. IndyCar.com