Sebastien Bourdais is a stroppy french racing driver who's dabbled in a number of motorsport disciplines with varying levels of success, although he will always be remembered at dotdotdotcomma for entertaining the crowd at the 2007 Race of Champions with a sizeable hissy fit after crashing with what he claimed was a stuck throttle and then stomping off in a huff of which any teenager would have been proud. It's all just for fun, Sebastien mon ami.

Bourdais won the International F3000 Championship at the third attempt, beating career GP2 racer Giorgio Pantano by a couple of points but only claiming the title following a failed drugs test by points leader Tomas Enge, who had alerted officials to the possibility that he was indulging in substance abuse by claiming that he could drive his car upside-down across a ceiling.

For the 2003 season, Bourdais signed a deal to race in F1 for Arrows, who promptly went bust, so the surly frenchman jetted across to America to have a crack at Champ Car racing. He started his very first race from pole and went on to win four consecutive titles from 2004 to 2007, becoming the first person since Ted Hat in 1948 to do the horn trick, or possibly the first person since Ted Horn in 1948 to do the hat trick.

His second go at getting into F1 led to a race seat with Toro Rosso for the 2008 season, during which he was consistently blown away by promising rookie Sebastian Vettel and his humour improved not one jot.

He somehow managed to keep his seat into 2009, this time partnering promising rookie Sebastien Buemi, until Toro Rosso finally lost patience with (a) his bad form and (ii) his bad temper, and sacked him after the German Grand Prix, even going so far in their desperation to get rid him as to replace him with someone not called Sebastien.