We have all heard of Theo Pourchaire, a 17-year-old French boy who bewitched everyone last year with his incredible speed demonstrated increasingly over the course of the season.
This year Theo will compete in Formula 2 with the ART Grand Prix team, and for many, thanks to his adaptability, he is considered one of the candidates for the title. But behind these incredible results, there is a lot of work and a lot of effort behind it.
So let's go for a journey to discover the career of Theo Pourchaire, the rising Parisian star!
Since his first steps in the racing world, Theo has shown great talent, winning 3 French champion titles and 2 French cups, while, internationally, he obtained a third place in the OK-Junior world championship, a result that he did not go unnoticed by the FFSA, which made him join the French Espoirs Karting team in 2017. However, Theo immediately understood that not only talent but also a lot of dedication is needed to make a breakthrough in the world of motorsport. Theo, from a very young age, has used every opportunity, every race and every testing day to progress and take decisive steps forward. In addition, he used his intelligence in his favor, to learn from each situation and analyze the data, communicating effectively with the team.
The 2018 vintage will be an important period for Pourchaire to grow as a driver. Theo wins, it would be better to say dominates, the French Junior F4 championship, winning 14 races out of 18, getting 17 podiums and only one retreat, collecting 408.5 points throughout the championship. Thanks to his victory, Pourchaire made his debut in the French F4 as a wild card, finishing with 1 victory, in the race at Spa, 4 podiums and a fastest lap. All this at the age of 14.
In 2019, after a glorious campaign in France, he moved to Germany to compete in the ADAC F4. Competing in ADAC F4 will prove to be the right choice for Theo, who will collect 4 victories, 12 podiums, 6 pole positions and 2 fastest laps, winning a very difficult championship by 7 points over Dennis Hauger, keeping up with great drivers like the aforementioned Hauger, Arthur Leclerc, Roman Stanek, Gianluca Petecof and Paul Aron. Thanks to his great season, at just 15 years old Pourchaire was labeled as one of the most interesting prospects for the future of motorsport, attracting the attention of Nicolas Toad, team manager of the ART Grand Prix, who will hire him for a place in F3 in 2020.
As I said earlier, ART will set its sights on Pourchaire, who will compete for the French team in 2020. In the first 2 rounds Pourchaire does not shine, it is in the Sunday morning sprint race at Red Bull Ring 2 that the turning point: Theo Pourchaire wins on the Austrian circuit, which he also repeated the following Sunday in Hungary, dominating the feature race at the Hungaroring. From now on Pourchaire will miss the points only once, and with incredible consistency in the results he will get 3 third places and 3 second places, respectively on the weekends at Silverstone, Spa, Monza (with a masterclass drive, because after an error at the start he was in P17 but he recovered to P2) and Mugello, showing a great adaptation and great speed on each track, scoring points 15 times out of 18 races available. Furthermore, at the end of the F3 championship Pourchaire will compete in the 2 weekends in Bahrain in FIA F2, thanks to the HWA Racelab team. These will prove to be very unlucky weekends for Theo, who will collect 2 nineteenth places, a twenty-first and a retirement.
But the question arises: why did I decide to talk about Theo Pourchaire?
The reason is simple: I believe that Pourchaire is the future of F1.
Theo is one of those drivers, as were Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen, who is a pleasure to watch, his way of driving, his approach to racing is on par with what the most talented drivers have. If you watch a race, you cannot fail to see Theo Pourchaire.
His dedication, his aggressiveness, but also his elegance and intelligence show through his onboard. And this is the story of Theo Pourchaire, the next breakthrough star of motorsport, because he is the new French rising star.
Written by Giacomo Rebuffini (Drs.power) / 18th March 2021