INDIA in F1

Tag: Theo Pourchaire

  • Pourchaire becomes F2’s 2nd youngest race winner

    Pourchaire becomes F2’s 2nd youngest race winner

    Monaco, 22 May 2021: ART Grand Prix rookie Théo Pourchaire made history in the Formula 2 Feature Race at Monte Carlo, converting pole to victory around the famed street track to become the Championship’s youngest ever victor at just 17-years-old, ahead of PREMA Racing’s fellow rookie Oscar Piastri.

    Despite considering Monaco a home race, the Frenchman – who only lives 45 minutes away from the circuit – had never previously raced at the Principality. And the ART Grand Prix racer made it a debut to savour, becoming the second tier’s youngest polesitter on Thursday, before replacing Lando Norris as the youngest winner on Sunday.

    It was a dominant victory to boot, with the Sauber junior looking almost entirely untroubled throughout the 42-lap race, holding off his former Formula 3 rival, Piastri.

    UNI-Virtuosi’s Felipe Drugovich made the alternate strategy work from ninth to finish third and score his second podium of the weekend, ahead of Robert Shwarztman, who recovered from a slow pitstop to take P4.

    Championship leader Guanyu Zhou pitted as late as Lap 37, overcutting his rivals to rise to fifth at the flag, after starting from 10th.

    AS IT HAPPENED

    Lining up in drier conditions than the morning’s wet race, Pourchaire enjoyed a dream start when the lights went out, getting a clean launch to pull away from his front row rival, Shwarztman. The PREMA was off the line nicely himself, but failed to trouble the Frenchman.

    The front eight were all on softs as Shwartzman chased Pourchaire around the streets of Monte Carlo, closing the gap to under a second and within DRS range. Meanwhile, the ART crew were deep in discussion about their pit strategy, wary of getting overcut by Shwarztman.

    Watchful of the pace of Drugovich – who had already changed to softs on the alternate strategy – Campos opted to bring Ralph Boschung in from sixth as early as Lap 21, sending him back out in 12th, with a long way to go on the Super Soft tyre.

    If that was their strategy, then it didn’t appear to work, with Drugovich jumping the Swiss almost immediately. As others began to pit, the Brazilian was up to eighth.

    The sight of Jüri Vips arriving in his rear-view mirror prompted Sprint Race 2 winner Dan Ticktum to get a move on and the Carlin quickly caught up to Piastri in P3. With the PREMA loosing pace, Carlin opted for the undercut and called Ticktum in for Super Softs, sending him back in P6. It was a move that didn’t come off, though, as PREMA responded by pitting Piastri on the following lap, returning him with track position in fifth, directly ahead of the Carlin.

    Shwartzman ditched his heavily worn softs on Lap 30, but it was a nightmare stop and the Russian returned in fifth, losing track position to both Ticktum and Piastri. Pourchaire pitted from the lead on the following lap and re-joined in second, behind Zhou, who was yet to change his boots.

    Three Virtual Safety Cars were required within the space of two chaotic laps. Firstly, for Marcus Armstrong, as the DAMS driver went into the wall, and then for Lirim Zendeli, who suffered the same fate.

    The highest profile of the three was for Ticktum, as the Carlin racer braved a bold move on Piastri for third at Rascasse when the Australian locked up. The Briton attempted to squeeze by but ran out of room and ended up in the barrier.

    With six laps to go, Zhou was still refusing to pit and possessed a 15s gap over Pourchaire, but the ART was lighting up the time screens, setting purple sector after purple sector. The Championship leader eventually opted to head in at the end of Lap 37, returning in fifth behind Shwarztman.

    Handed P1 with a 5s gap over Piastri, Pourchaire closed out the momentous victory with relative ease. Drugovich completed the podium ahead of Shwartzman, with Zhou in fifth. Boschung was sixth ahead of Liam Lawson, while Vips ended up in eighth. Roy Nissany upped his points tally for the season with a P9 finish, ahead of Richard Verschoor.

    KEY QUOTE – THEO POURCHAIRE (ART GRAND PRIX)

    “I won the Monaco Feature Race and I feel so happy. The team did an incredible job, and the car was amazing. I was under pressure for around 20 laps, but then I was just really, really fast. We did a really good strategy, and yeah, we won at Monaco. I cannot believe it, I am so happy.”

    THE CHAMPIONSHIP VIEW

    Zhou retains his grip on the Drivers’ Championship at the end of Round 2, sitting in first with 68 points, ahead of Piastri on 52. Pourchaire is up to third on 47 points, with Ticktum in fourth on 38 and Lawson fifth on 36.

    In the Teams’ title fight, UNI-Virtuosi lead with 97 points, ahead of PREMA on 82 and Carlin on 67. ART are third with 63 and Hitech fifth with 58.

  • Theo Pourchaire takes pole for Feature Race; Jehan qualifies P6 in group: F2

    Theo Pourchaire takes pole for Feature Race; Jehan qualifies P6 in group: F2

    Monaco, 20 May 2021: Théo Pourchaire will start his first ever Feature Race in Monte Carlo from the front of the grid. The 17-year-old putting on a magnificent drive in Qualifying to become the second tier’s youngest ever polesitter, beating Robert Shwartzman by nearly half a second.

    Indian racer Jehan Daruvala of Carlin Racing has qualified P6 in his group which means he will start P11 in Race 1. “It is not an ideal qualifying session. But I will be pushing hard in the race tomorrow to move up the field from here,” promised Daruvala in a tweet.

    Labelling Monaco as a home race ahead of the weekend, Pourchaire said he only lives around 45 minutes from the historic street circuit, but had never actually raced there before. Not that you’d have known, the Frenchman beating Oscar Piastri – who will start P3 – by 0.458s with a time of 1:20.985 in Group A.

    Despite knowledge of the time to beat, and slightly greater track evolution, Shwartzman wasn’t able to better the ART Grand Prix driver’s time in the second group. Finishing first ahead of Dan Ticktum, the PREMA driver was still 0.418s offPourchaire and will start from second.

    GROUP A

    As is standard for Monte Carlo, qualifying was split into two groups of 16 minutes each, with Group A made up of even-numbered cars.

    Jüri Vips and Felipe Drugovich leapt to first and second as the initial fast laps came in, but there was still more time to be found, with the latter scraping the barriers on his way around.

    Vips improved on his time to retain first on his next tour, but then clipped the barriers on the final push and handed an opportunity to Pourchaire, who responded by going half a second faster than the Red Bull junior, with a lap of 1:20.985.

    Oscar Piastri couldn’t find as much time as Pourchaire, but did better Vips’ effort to jump from sixth to second. Roy Nissany dove into P4, dropping Drugovich down to fifth.

    GROUP B

    With Pourchaire watching on intently from the pitlane, Round 1 polesitter Guanyu Zhou set the fastest time of the first push in Group B, but remained more than a second off the provisional polesitter.

    The UNI-Virtuosi man fell to fourth on the second run with a poor middle sector, as Free Practice leader Shwartzman stole first, ahead of Ticktum and Christian Lundgaard.

    Track temperature was continuing to rise as the last set of push laps began and Ticktum briefly snatched P1 from Shwarztman, but the Russian swiftly stole it back at the chequered flag, with a lap of 1:21.403.

    One of just four drivers with experience of driving an F2 car around Monaco, Ralph Boschung put his Campos in third place, relegating Lundgaard to fourth and Zhou to fifth.

    With the results aggregated, Pourchaire will start the Feature Race from pole, flanked by Shwartzman. Piastri will line up in third, ahead of Ticktum. Vips will start from fifth, with Boschung sixth, Nissany seventh and Lundgaard eighth. Drugovich and Zhou complete the top 10.

    Finishing 10th overall, Zhou will start from reverse grid pole in Sprint Race 1 on Friday at 11.45am local time.

  • Theo Pourchaire of ART, become F3’s youngest double winner

    Theo Pourchaire of ART, become F3’s youngest double winner

    Budapest, 18 July 2020: Formula 3’s youngest race winner Théo Pourchaire became the Championship’s first double victor of the season, taking a resounding Race 1 win at the Hungaroring by a mega margin of 11.9s over Championship leader Oscar Piastri.

    For the second race in a row, Pourchaire was handed first when the race leaders collided in front of him, but there would be no safety car escort to the chequered flag, as he enjoyed in Spielberg. Polesitter Alex Smolyar and Logan Sargeant came to blows from the front row into Turn 1 on the opening lap of the race.

    With more than 20 laps to go, and Championship leader Piastri directly behind him, Pourchaire had to display nerves of steel. Pulling away at a rate of a half-a-second a lap, he displayed a maturity well beyond his tender age of 16.

    Despite his involvement in the Lap 1 incident, Sargeant was able to cling onto third and kept MP Motorsport pairing Bent Viscaal and Richard Verschoor at bay behind him, with the Dutch duo more focused on squabbling amongst themselves.

    Clément Novalak was mightily impressive around the Hungaroring, making the most of the chaos around him to climb 17 positions for ninth place. Behind him, David Beckmann recovered well from a difficult Qualifying session to climb four places and take the final points position, and reverse grid pole.

    AS IT HAPPENED

    Rain had continued to fall overnight in Budapest, stopping in time for the race, but this left the track in a damp and dusky condition for F3, and it showed at the start.

    Polesitter Smolyar had initially made a strong getaway, but was thrown out of contention when Sargeant lost the rear of his car at Turn 1. The American just couldn’t find the grip as he entered the corner and collided with the front wing of the Frenchman’s ART machine.

    Calan Williams and Frederik Vesti were caught up in the collision and ended up tangled into one another at the corner as well, ending their races.

    Smolyar and Sargeant managed to get going again despite the damage. The American somehow held on to third, but Smolyar fell to the back of the field.

    The safety car was deployed as the damage and debris were cleared off the track. When action resumed, Pourchaire kept the lead, but the running was once again halted after the rear of Liam Lawson’s car caught fire, leaving a trail of oil from Turn 1 to Turn 2.

    The race was red flagged to allow the marshals to clear up the oil and get the race back underway behind the safety car. The added wait allowed the track to dry that little bit more and Pourchaire was able to get away cleanly when the SC headed back in. Piastri did have a look down the inside, but opted to air on the side of caution and sat behind.

    Pourchaire set two fastest laps in a row to increase his margin at the front of the field to 1.7s, as DRS was enabled.

    With the win quickly slipping away from him, Piastri’s focus was forced to switch to defending second from his teammate, Sargeant. The American wasn’t safe himself: he was stuck in a DRS train with Fernandez, Verschoor and Viscaal. Verschoor made the first move, taking the inside line to pass Fernandez into fourth, and he was followed through by Viscaal.

    Sargeant managed to pull away from the battling cars behind, but Piastri was struggling. The Australian had changed two of his tyres during the red flag period and hadn’t quite got them up to temperature. Piastri also didn’t have the advantage of DRS that those behind him did, with Pourchaire pulling further and further ahead in front of him, increasing the gap to a massive 10s.

    Piastri would hold on though, and the only change to the order on the final laps was for fourth, as Viscaal dived ahead of Verschoor at the very last opportunity, on the final lap.

    Pourchaire coolly cross edthe line first ahead of Piastri and Sargeant, with Viscaal in fourth and Verschoor fifth. Fernandez took sixth ahead of Alex Peroni, Dennis Hauger, Novalak and David Beckmann.

    Piastri holds on to the Championship lead with 62 points, ahead of Sargeant in second on 49. Pourchaire’s win lifts him to third, six points behind. Vesti and Verschoor complete the top five. PREMA retain P1 in the Teams’ Championship, on 148.5 points, ahead of Trident on 68.5. ART are third, followed by MP Motorsport and Hitech Grand Prix.

    KEY QUOTE – THEO POURCHAIRE (ART GRAND PRIX)

    “I am really happy to win my second race in Formula 3 – the second race in a row. It is Race 1 this time, so it comes with more points. I qualified in P3 and had a really good start. I was P1 all of the race, and at the end I was quite fast. I want to thank the team for the car and thank Sauber Academy as well.”