Twelve months ago Theo Pourchaire was seen as one of the most promising young drivers in the world and a guaranteed future F1 driver. Now he’s out of a competition for the third time in half a year and it's doubtful if he’ll ever make it to F1. You gotta feel for the poor guy.
Formula 2
Becoming F2 champion was the clear goal for Pourchaire when he came into the series in 2021 at just 17 years old. His first season was decent with two victories to his name. His second season was better, with him ending in second place with three wins and four more podiums. At that point, Pourchaire’s stock was high and everyone considered him one of the biggest talents coming up through the ranks of junior racing. All the signs were there that Pourchaire would go into 2023 and absolutely curbstomp everyone else on the grid.
Well, he didn’t. In fact, he only won one race in the entire season. The inconsistency of his opponents meant that Pourchaire did go into the finale as the championship leader, but his main rival Fred Vesti could still overtake him. Vesti put up a good fight, but ultimately it wasn’t enough: Pourchaire won by a lead of just 9 points.
I had the pleasure of talking to Vesti shortly before his title challenge and asked him if he would remain in Formula 2 if he lost. He told me (paraphrasing here): “No, because there’s nothing left to prove once you’re already a close runner up. You only stay in F2 for a third year if you’re absolutely certain that you win.” And that’s kind of why the title win of Pourchaire felt a bit mediocre. It already felt a bit unnecessary for him to stay on for a third year, and to win in such an unremarkable way didn’t really elevate his status either. It might help explain why he wasn’t chosen for a spot in F1 either, despite being in clear contention for one earlier in the season.
Super Formula
Regardless of how he won it though, at the end of 2023, Pourchaire was still the champion of Formula 2. In F2, that means you have to leave the series. There was no space in F1 so Pourchaire instead went to the highly competitive Super Formula. The Japanese series is a popular one to store drivers from junior formula before there’s a place in a competition like F1 or IndyCar. It worked for Pierre Gasly, Liam Lawson, Alex Palou and Nick Cassidy, so it seemed like it might be a good move for Pourchaire as well.
Except it wasn’t. Pourchaire failed to get out of Q1 in qualifying for the first race and finished last of the running cars. And look, there’s no shame in that. Super Formula is an incredibly tough competition, and to go to a different series in a different country where you don’t speak the language… well that’s a difficult start for anyone. And it was his first race after all. But it did look like it was a bad fit for Pourchaire and helped to quickly take him out of the spotlight that had been on him during the rest of his career.
IndyCar
Clearly Pourchaire also felt that it was a bad fit, because after that first race he was looking for a different competition to race in. But where do you go at the start of a season, right after everyone has confirmed their line-ups?
Meanwhile the McLaren IndyCar team was having the opposite problem. Their driver David Malukas had gotten injured in a mountain bike accident and had no real prospect of returning to the grid anytime soon. Somehow McLaren and Pourchaire managed to find each other and the Frenchman was announced as Malukas’s replacement, first temporarily but soon for the rest of the season.
Pourchaire’s time in IndyCar hasn’t been bad, but also not great. A few finishes around the top ten have put him ahead of some more experienced full-time drivers, though he does still sit in 21st in the standings. But he seems to fit well within the team, he gets along great with his team mates, and he seems to enjoy his time in IndyCar a lot more than his time in Super Formula. Even when he became the target of death threats from some insane fans of Agustin Canapino - and Canapino essentially claiming that that was not his problem and Pourchaire should just man up - McLaren had his back. They broke off their deal with Canapino’s main sponsor and showed their unwavering support for Pourchaire. Yes, McLaren and Pourchaire were a match made in heaven.
You noticed the use of past tense there, didn’t you? Yeah, for whatever reason McLaren has now decided that it wants to kick Pourchaire out again and instead bring in Nolan Siegel. No official reason has been given for the change. McLaren is now essentially pretending that this was always the plan but it really wasn’t. They were holding competitions for fans to design Pourchaire’s helmet for later in the season, and Pourchaire was talking in now-deleted tweets about how excited he was for the next race. It came as a real surprise to him and everyone else. And the result is that Pourchaire is once again without a drive for this season.
Formula 1
After Oliver Bearman’s phenomenal F1 debut in Saudi Arabia, Nico Hulkenberg had a very interesting analysis. “I think it's very early”, he told Motorsport.com. “He's got a big job on his hands in F2, because otherwise if he's not doing well there this Jeddah race is going to be forgotten in two days. So there’s quite a bit of pressure on him there to deliver now in F2.”
That is essentially where Pourchaire finds himself too. He was very highly rated at the start of 2023, but due to everything mentioned so far he has kind of disappeared from the conversation about an F1 seat. Sauber had the chance to pick him up last year, but instead chose to stick with their current line-up.
Oh yeah, Sauber. Time we talk about them. Pourchaire has been a loyal member of the Sauber Driver Academy since 2019. Sauber team representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi even claimed that “we’ll simply have three drivers [in 2024], not two official ones and one reserve driver”. Setting aside the irony of a Sauber official talking about having three drivers, it should be noted that it almost feels like Sauber has forgotten about Pourchaire since then. He’s not really been around in the paddock or in their social media coverage and he also hasn’t been confirmed yet as a free practice driver for this season.
And the big problem is also that Sauber won’t be Sauber for much longer. Audi will take over in 2026 and is already making big changes within the organization. That includes bringing on Hulkenberg as one of their drivers for next year. It’s currently unconfirmed who will be driving alongside him, but it’s very obvious that Carlos Sainz is at the top of Audi’s wishlist. Now, unless Sauber wants to once again try that three driver thing, that doesn’t leave any room for Pourchaire. You've got to feel for the guy. Because aside from maybe his lack of outstanding results, he didn't really do all that bad a job. And yet it seems like this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad season for Pourchaire might just end with him being locked out of F1 permanently.