The next steps for France's latest F1 hopeful after an F2 title miss

Theo Pourchaire had a bright year ahead of him before the start of the 2022 Formula 2 season. He had finished fifth in his 2021 rookie campaign with ART Grand Prix, the then-18-year-old becoming the youngest ever series winner as he dominated the Monaco feature race, underlining his status as one of the most promising young drivers on the junior single-seater ladder. The Sauber Academy member was the highest-placed returning driver from last year’s cohort, and had his eyes firmly on the prize.

Remaining with French outfit ART, he started as he meant to go on by taking victory in the year's opening feature race in Bahrain to claim an early lead in the standings. Failing to score in Jeddah the next time out hampered his chances somewhat, but he was back on top after round three in Imola thanks to another feature race win while scooping a precious two points from Saturday’s reverse-grid sprint race.

But by the following round, Felipe Drugovich’s consistency had proved hard to contend with. Pourchaire had taken 60 points from the first four rounds, and though his MP Motorsport rival led by 26 points, the title was far from over. However a torrid Baku weekend saw Pourchaire suffer “really poor performance – we had no grip at all,” and allowed Drugovich to bolster his lead to 49 points.

July proved more successful. The Frenchman points to his “incredible” home race at Paul Ricard as a personal highlight of the season, and he rounded off the month with a feature race win at the Hungaroring  that more than halved the gap to Drugovich to just 21 points. It was after that “really good” weekend in Hungary where he first started to think about his title prospects, believing that the gap can go “really fast in both ways,” having previously refused to do so.

But at the first round after the summer break, Spa, things seemed to go wrong. Just at the point Pourchaire needed to mount his resurgence, he struggled, qualifying in eighth before finding himself struggling for pace in both races. He was on for a top five finish in the feature race before mechanical issues scuppered his chances and took just three points home.

“We were not at the right place in terms of performance, in terms of luck, in terms of... I don't know, everything,” he tells Autosport. “And it all went really bad.”

A strong Hungary weekend gave Pourchaire confidence for his title chances - but his year then became derailed

Photo by: DPPI

Things went from bad to worse at Zandvoort. His team-mate Frederik Vesti having crashed in practice, Pourchaire was only too aware of the perils of Dutch circuit's treacherous banking. But things were looking good and he was running fourth after his first run before “a very small mistake” put him into the Turn 3 wall, ending his session and leaving him 16th on the grid for both races. He attributes the mistake to it being his first time driving on that track, and its plethora of banked corners.

“It's really strange - the feeling of the car is really strange and I was a bit too much on the inside, with a bit too much steering angle, and a bit too much speed as well,” Pourchaire explains. “It was small amounts every time but all those things together, I just lost the rear suddenly, and you don't have any runoff area there, so it's a really difficult mistake.

“We were in a good position, we were going to fight for the top three, which is good enough, and unfortunately we ended up 16th. It’s very tough to overtake and we had the chance in race two, because you have a pitstop, different strategies, you can have safety cars, we had a red flag, so there was many things happening in that race. But wrong decision, wrong time, wrong safety car.”

He finished as the last classified runner, 20th, in a disastrous sprint race and although clever strategy in the feature race assisted an ascent through the order to ninth, that paled in comparison with his title rival. A fourth feature win for Drugovich as Pourchaire took just two points from the weekend gave the Brazilian a 69-point advantage. 

“I want to give the maximum and the best result possible is to win the championship. But there were some issues this year, I did some mistakes, the team also did some mistakes" Theo Pourchaire

Pourchaire's title chances suddenly looked almost non-existent and were finally extinguished at Monza. Drugovich was crowned champion from the pitwall after a collision in the sprint race, while Pourchaire crashed out of both races, a pointless weekend proving a sad end to his hopes of victory.

This weekend in Abu Dhabi marks the championship’s finale, with Pourchaire almost certainly set to be crowned runner-up, just as he was to Oscar Piastri in FIA Formula 3 in 2020. Reflecting on the season, he says it was “pretty good overall,” but admits to regret at missing out on the title.

“For sure, I'm a bit disappointed, because as always, I want to win,” he says. “I want to give the maximum and the best result possible is to win the championship. But there were some issues this year, I did some mistakes, the team also did some mistakes.

“I had a lot of issues on the car, which is not related to the team, unfortunately. I cannot be fully disappointed with P2, even though I know I need to still confirm that, I need to do a good job in Abu Dhabi. But I have a good gap on Logan Sargeant. It was a good championship, a good season, and as I said, we cannot be disappointed with P2. Hopefully we can clinch that teams’ title.”

Pourchaire's 2022 has featured the dizzying highs, but the lows have resulted in an inconsistent year

Photo by: Alfa Romeo

Pourchaire points to the unreliability of the F2 cars as the source of some of his issues, having gone through three engines and suffered several other mechanical problems this year, though he concedes that some of the problems were of his own making.

“I can still improve in many areas, I learned a lot this year,” he says. “It was a very tough year mentally and on the results side. In the end, I'm P2 right now in the standings, but I could have been easily outside of the top five considering the last few races so it was not an easy season.

“But as I said, I learned a lot and I cannot complain about that. It's very good what happened to me this year actually. I will learn from that, I will try to improve myself. For example, quali - I was not very good this year for some reasons, and I know what to do to improve that, which is good.

“In the races, I was strong every time. We improved the race starts, we improved the pitstops with the team, we can improve a bit the strategy sometimes. So there is many things to improve and I know how to do it, so that's good.”

Asked whether he felt his team was missing something or if Drugovich’s MP squad had something extra, Pourchaire accepts that ART was “not perfect,” but that he and the team worked well together to help each other through adversity, each shouldering the blame when they were at fault.

“We had some highs and lows, but we tried to stay together to help each other,” he says. “But we can work on that side. As I told them, when I do mistakes, I say, 'I did a mistake, guys, I'm sorry'. When they do a mistake, they have to say it as well. We have to be [sorry] together.

“You know, it's not a huge problem if they miss the pitstop, if they miss the strategy, I will be there to work with them to help them. That's how our team works.”

But he adds: “We were lacking a bit of pace sometimes, taking the right decision sometimes. To win a championship like this when in front of you, you have Drugovich, who is a third season driver, with a good team MP Motorsport.

A second year with ART offered Pourchaire continuity - but both driver and team admit to making mistakes in 2022

Photo by: Formula Motorsport Ltd

“This year, they took all the good decisions, they were doing good strategy almost every time - no mistakes at all. No mechanical issues, not one mechanical issue in the year. It's very tough to beat those guys when we are not perfect like that. So it's a bit of both, I would say.”

There have been things to be cheerful about though, despite the disappointment of failing to crack the F2 title in his sophomore season. Chiefly, this was his Formula 1 weekend debut at the Circuit of the Americas last month, as Pourchaire was awarded his first FP1 session for Alfa Romeo. He is set to take part in more F1 sessions next year when he will serve as the team’s reserve, while also undergoing more simulator work and playing a bigger part alongside Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu.

Pourchaire will also take part in next week’s post-Abu Dhabi F1 rookie test, but beyond that he is “not aware what I will do next year,” though he admits a return to F2 isn't off the table. He was touted as taking part in December’s Super Formula test in Japan, but Pourchaire insists he will not be attending, though he says the series “can be a really good thing” for drivers’ careers as compatriot Pierre Gasly proved in 2017 after winning the previous year's GP2 crown.

"The future of Sauber is really bright with Audi. For me, I see an opportunity there, I see a big opportunity. And let's see how it goes in the talks for my future" Theo Pourchaire

“[F2] is an option, clearly, we were talking about this with the Sauber Academy a few days ago,” he says. “It's an option because Formula 2 is, in my opinion, the best championship after Formula 1.

“We are on the same weekends as the F1 teams, we are watched by every F1 team. I am still very young. I am capable of winning this championship for sure, at least I will give my best if I do this for another year, I don't know yet. At the moment, the only thing I know is that I will be a reserve driver for Alfa Romeo in F1, which is a really good thing. We do a lot of simulator work, I will move to Switzerland, living there next to the factory.

“It's a good step forward, and the future of Sauber is really bright with Audi. For me, I see an opportunity there, I see a big opportunity. And let's see how it goes in the talks for my future.

Though a somewhat unorthodox approach, a third F2 season has proven successful for many drivers in the past, as Drugovich and soon-to-be AlphaTauri F1 driver and 2019 F2 winner Nyck de Vries can attest. F2 is the most visible junior series to F1 teams, and likely to prove his best shot at a top-tier seat in 2024. 

As he puts it: “If I have a good contract, a good option, why not do a third season in F2?”

Can Pourchaire earn himself a move to F1 at the third time of asking?

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images