Photo: Mercedes-AMG F1

The Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 team has announced two new junior drivers, and the signing of Theo Pourchaire.

F1 work will be dovetailed by Pourchaire with racing for Peugeot in the World Endurance Championship’s top Hypercar class.

Since winning the 2023 Formula 2 title aged 20 and as a protege of Sauber, Pourchaire has raced at single-seaters’ top level but has been unable to do so full-time in any of those paddocks. He started off by graduating to Super Formula in early 2024, but gave up his seat at Team Impul after just one race to pursue IndyCar opportunities with McLaren.

Pourchaire had been called up for two races there as a stand-in for an injured driver. Having impressed the team, Pourchaire was offered a full-time seat (excluding the Indianapolis 500) and he dropped his SF seat to accept it. But the arrangement only lasted 40 days, as McLaren replaced him with paying fellow rookie Nolan Siegel who signed on a multi-year deal.

Having relocated to the USA, Pourchaire ended up only doing six IndyCar races with McLaren. Through 2024 he was also reserve driver for the Alfa Romeo Racing F1 team operated by Sauber. Despite ending his Swiss residency, which had provided proximity to Sauber’s headquarters, Pourchaire was able to continue his duties at several races (but with no free practice outings) until the end of 2024 when he left to join Peugeot as its test and development driver.

His 2025 contract also meant serving as Peugeot’s reserve driver when required (for example if the regular reserve driver had been called up to race), leading to him making his WEC debut in the season-ending Eight Hours of Bahrain. He finished 10th, and earned a full-time race seat for 2026. Pourchaire has also contested two Formula E practice sessions.

Frederik Vesti, the driver that Pourchaire beat to the F2 crown, has been promoted by Mercedes from the reverse driver role to being the F1 team’s ‘third driver’ this year, while junior team graduate Doriane Pin and new signings Joshua Duerksen and Pourchaire will share the simulator (in Britain) and trackside responsibilities of development drivers.

Mercedes has also announced that its junior Kenzo Craigie will race in E4 and Italian Formula 4 this year, after recently coming third in UAE4 as a single-seater rookie, while former rival James Anagnostiadis remains in senior and shifter karting.

The four drivers departing the junior team’s ranks were revealed in January, and after some overalls-fuelled speculation it has been confirmed that 11-year-old karters Niccolo Perico and Devin Titz join for 2026.

Perico currently leads the WSK Super Master Series in the OK-N Junior class after winning the first three rounds, and in mini karting last year the Italian won the Champions of the Future Academy Program, WSK Final Cup and WSK SMS titles.

Titz, from Germany, is still in mini karting. He sits sixth in WSK SMS, and was fourth in the 2024 German championship.

The post Mercedes-AMG F1 team signs Pourchaire, adds two karters as juniors appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Mahindra

Felipe Drugovich will make his long-awaited race debut at single-seaters’ top level next weekend as he joins Mahindra’s Formula E line-up for the Berlin E-Prix.

Since winning the 2022 Formula 2 title, the 25-year-old Brazilian has contested six Formula 1 practice sessions with Aston Martin and acted as reserve driver, done an IndyCar test with Chip Ganassi Racing and has been called up  by Maserati for two rookie tests and a rookie-only practice session in FE.

He has raced in prototype sportscars over the last two years to stay race-sharp, and the opportunity to compete in FE has come due to Mahindra’s regular driver Nyck de Vries having a clashing World Endurance Championship commitment.

The two races in Berlin on July 12/13 will be Drugovich’s first in single-seaters since concluding his title-winning F2 campaign in November 2022.

“I’m very happy to confirm I will be making my FE debut with Mahindra in Berlin,” said Drugovich. “FE is a championship I’ve been around for a while now; having tested on several occasions, I’m excited to now get the opportunity to race.

“Mahindra is a fantastic team, one of the championship’s standout names, and it’s clear from their recent results that the new car is a significant step forward. I’m looking forward to working closely with them to prepare for Berlin, and I’m sure we can have a good weekend together.”

He has already worked with the outfit, having recently done a private test at the Guadix circuit in Spain.

“It’s very exciting to be able to welcome Felipe to the team for the Berlin E-Prix,” Mahindra’s team principal Frederic Bertrand said. “It’s been on our radar for a while now that we would need to find a solution for Berlin to substitute for Nyck.

“Felipe quickly emerged as the standout candidate, his achievements speak for themselves, and he’s been very impressive when he’s tested a FE car in the past. The benefit of having this confirmed so far in advance is that we have had plenty of time to get him fully integrated with the team, to prepare him properly for the race weekend and give him the best opportunity to go out and showcase what he can do.”

Theo Pourchaire, who succeeded Drugovich as F2 champion, will also be driving in Berlin but after the race weekend. The 21-year-old Frenchman will join Maserati for the rookie test on July 14.

After doing development work on FE’s Gen3 car back in 2022 (with the Gen3 Evo car currently in use), Pourchaire picked up more FE mileage earlier this year when he drove for Maserati in the rookie practice session at the Jeddah E-Prix.

Following his F2 title, Pourchaire made three F1 practice outings outings with long-term back Sauber before leaving the team at the end of 2024, and raced top-tier single-seaters last year. He began the year with one race in Super Formula, then joined McLaren for six IndyCar races. He is now Peugeot’s test and development driver in the WEC.

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Photo: Jaguar Racing

Formula E’s rookie practice session at next weekend’s Jeddah E-Prix has attracted more young drivers.

Already announced as getting call-ups were Mahindra’s reserve driver Kush Maini and Super Formula-bound Zak O’Sullivan at Envision Racing, and three more names have now been confirmed.

Jamie Chadwick will drive for Jaguar, Gabriele Mini will get in Nissan’s car and Theo Pourchaire will be at the wheel for Maserati.

It marks the continuation of a long partnership for Chadwick, since she drove for Jaguar in FE’s rookie test in 2020 and then again in pre-season testing last November.

The three-time W Series champion had aimed to race at single-seaters’ top level this year, but was unable to find a seat in IndyCar after a race-winning sophomore Indy Nxt campaign in 2024, left Formula 1 team Williams’ driver development programme after six years and is instead is switching to sportscars in the European Le Mans Series.

2023 Formula 2 champion Pourchaire did development work on FE’s Gen3 car back in 2022, and is now Peugeot’s test and development driver in the World Endurance Championship where it competes in the top Hypercar class.

He had previously been on Formula 1 team Sauber’s books for six years, first as a junior and then as reserve driver for two seasons. Although he never raced in F1, he did contest the 2024 Super Formula season opener and claimed a top-10 finish from six races with McLaren in IndyCar.

Alpine junior Mini drove for Nissan, a sister brand, in FE’s rookie test last year in the middle of an FIA Formula 3 Championship campaign in which he missed out on the title in the final race.

The Nicolas Todt protege will be stepping up to F2 this year with Prema, having already made his debut with the team in Baku last season. His cameo appearance began with him qualifying eighth, and he made the podium in the sprint race.

The post Chadwick, Mini and Pourchaire to drive in FE’s rookie practice session appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: Joe Skibinski

Every year, some of junior single-seaters’ top drivers are handed professional opportunities. Some lead to long-term careers in sportscars, while others try out the more cut-throat world of F1 and IndyCar

In addition to annually ranking the top 50 drivers in junior single-seater racing since 2011, Formula Scout also recognises the achievements of the very best of those who ‘graduate’ into the world of professional racing each year.

There were three Formula 2 race-winners who debuted in F1 this season, and while two of them quickly became de facto stars of the grid they are not eligible for this list since their primary programme was F2. Ferrari junior Ollie Bearman contested three grands prix and scored seven points, earning himself a full-time seat with Haas next year, and Williams handed its junior Franco Colapinto a surprise F1 promotion mid-season and he scored five points from nine races.

Bearman competed in all F2 rounds that didn’t clash with his F1 duties but struggled to 12th in the standings (his three wins countered by engine issues and a lack of pace elsewhere), and Colapinto dropped out of F2 once he became an F1 driver. Despite missing four rounds he still came ninth in the points. There are rumours he could appear in F1 again in 2025, despite no seats being free, but returning to F2 is also an option having contributed to an explosion in Argentine sponsors in racing.

Jack Doohan, third in F2 in 2023, made his F1 debut with Alpine in the season finale ahead of racing full-time there in 2025.

Taylor Barnard also won in F2 before dumping it once McLaren signed him to its Formula E team, but he did 20 races in the former and only four in the latter this year. He began the 2024-25 season this month by making the Sao Paulo E-Prix podium.

Another ineligible name is Esteban Masson, who won the Formula Regional-based Eurocup-3 championship last year but through his sponsors and the backing of Toyota ended up in GT sportscars for 2024. He drove a Lexus in the FIA Endurance Trophy for GT3 cars, and in the European Le Mans Series claimed two class wins and came second in the standings.

Photo: Antoine Evora

However Toyota is sending him back to single-seaters next year, and in Japan’s third-tier Super Formula Lights series.

There were 15 drivers who could have made Formula Scout’s Class of 2023, but didn’t perform strongly enough – or in a series with not enough high-quality opposition to be compared against – to make the cut.

Cayman Islander Kyffin Simpson was FRegional Americas champion in 2021, then became a development driver for IndyCar powerhouse Chip Ganassi Racing. Before that he was in Honda Performance Development’s GT3 academy programme, which could have led to a professional single-seater drive when he was just 17 as his FRegional title earned him a scholarship from HDP (which he turned down) to step up to Super Formula.

He took the more sensible option of building his experience in Indy Nxt, and despite failing to win in his two seasons there got a IndyCar seat for 2024. Not only that, but a full-time ride with Ganassi. And was signed after a single test day in the car.

At the time, Simpson said “I don’t really have any expectations set for myself”, but he had a race-winning car at his disposal and two title-winning team-mates to learn from as a rookie. Externally, there were expectations being set that few anticipated he would meet. But then the 19-year-old finished 12th on his debut with the second fastest lap.

That ended up being Simpson’s best race result, and he only qualified in the top 20 three times en route to 21st in the points.

Over in Super Formula there was another questionable signing, as TGM Grand Prix put 18-year-old Juju Noda in one of its cars. The Euroformula race-winner had primarily spent the previous two years in club series for third-tier single-seaters, so had a lot to learn about higher levels of downforce and racecraft. While becoming the third ever woman to race in SF during its time as a top-tier single-seater series is impressive, she qualified more than two seconds off the pace everywhere and only late safety car periods prevented her from finishing more than a minute behind the winner in every race.

Photo: Super Formula

Performing stronger in their rookie campaigns were Iori Kimura (B-MAX Racing) and Hibiki Taira (Team Impul), who were the top two in Super Formula Lights last year. The former scored three points, and the latter took two as a part-timer as well as coming third in Super GT’s secondary GT300 class with INGING. He took a win and three second places there.

Stepping up to FE after four years and four wins in F2 was Jehan Daruvala. The Indian drove for Maserati and came 21st in the standings, starting three races in the top 10, taking the fastest lap in the Monaco E-Prix and finishing a career-best seventh in one of Berlin’s races. It was not enough to retain his seat for 2025.

Most junior single-seater graduates ended up racing prototype sportscars this year, but one made it into the top Hypercar class. Carl Bennett, a Formula 4 race-winner with Eurocup-3 experience, joined Isotta Fraschini in the World Endurance Championship but the brand only lasted five races before dropping out and in that time a 14th place was the best result.

In the lower-level LMP2 machinery he came 10th in the Asian Le Mans Series and 20th in ELMS, concluding both campaigns with podium finishes.

Gregoire Saucy, a podium finisher in the FIA Formula 3 Championship, drove a United Autosport-run McLaren to ninth in WEC’s GT3 class (doing enough to retain his seat for a second season and earn an FE test with McLaren through mutual team boss Zak Brown), and in ELMS led a LMP2 Pro-Am entry to two overall seventh places as a reliably fast driver.

ELMS was full of former open-wheel talents, with F2 race-winner Clement Novalak (Inter Europol Competition), 2023 F2 runner-up Frederik Vesti (Cool Racing) and 2022 champion Felipe Drugovich (Vector Sport) coming seventh, ninth and 15th in the standings respectively. Novalak was also LMP2 runner-up in the Le Mans 24 Hours, while the latter two served as F1 reserve drivers at Aston Martin and Mercedes-AMG respectively. Vesti will race a Cadillac hypercar in IMSA next year.

Photo: ELMS

USF Pro 2000 race-winner Bijoy Garg came 11th overall for United Autosports in ELMS and 19th in IMSA’s LMP2 class with one podium, and Indy Nxt podium-finisher Rasmus Lindh appeared part-time in IMSA and ELMS in various cars.

One-time FRegional Europe podium-finisher Maceo Capietto won in ELMS at Mugello, with a place close to his FIA Platinum-graded team-mate Matteo Cairoli and was the fastest LMP2 rookie at Le Mans, but that pace wasn’t on show everywhere.

The F1-supporting Porshce Supercup attracted a surprisingly high number of sportscar newcomers in 2024. Former F2 racer Lirim Zendeli made a second attempt at redirecting his career, after his detour into USFP2000 last year only resulted in one win, and was 12th in the Supercup standings as well as coming fourth in Porsche Carrera Cup Italy with two poles with Ombra Racing. Monaco Increase Management was responsible for Zendeli’s move, and some of his results didn’t show the continual upwards trajectory he was on.

Eurocup-3 race-winner Francesco Braschi and FREC graduate Victor Bernier were 15th and 19th in the Supercup, with the former taking podiums in Italy while the latter came sixth in Carrera Cup France – two places behind the rookie champion and former FREC rival Marcus Amand.

As none of these names could make the cut, here is Formula Scout’s Class of 2023… Key Wins (W), poles (P), fastest laps (FL)

10. Kas Haverkort NETHERLANDS 21y/o
8th in Porsche Supercup, 7th in PCC Germany (1 W, 1 P, 1 FL), 5th in PSC Southern Europe (2 W)   2023: 4th in FREC (2 W, 2 P, 4 FL)   2022: 5th in FREC (2 W, 1 P, 2 FL)

Photo: Porsche

Another driver to spend their 2024 racing in spec series for Porsche GT cars, and the most successful of them, was Haverkort.

The 2020 Spanish F4 champion continued a trend through his car racing career of only driving for Dutch teams by joining GP Elite to do three different series in one year. This contrasted to having spent the previous three years in just one series, with his three FREC campaigns not earning him a place higher up the single-seater ladder.

In the Supercup, the most prestigious of one-make series, Haverkort qualified 10th on debut and improved to sixth place in the race. Around the streets of Monaco his FREC experience was of use and he started and finished fourth, earning him top rookie honours, and two further top-10 finishes followed at the Red Bull Ring and Silverstone.

At the Hungaroring, where he had won from pole in FREC, Haverkort was pipped to top spot in qualifying by just 0.078s and then held second place for the first six laps of the race before being passed. Once gapped by the top two he settled in third, marking another rookie classification win as well as his first overall podium.

Although he remained on the pace following that, he had disastrous races at Spa-Francorchamps and Monza that dropped him from fourth to eighth in the standings and cost him the rookie title.

In Carrera Cup Germany he again showed his speciality for the Hungaroring by winning from pole, and two Red Bull Ring podiums before another bad season finale earned him seventh in the points. Yet again the rookie title went amiss due to a bad final race. Not quite delivering on his promise was made more difficult by the fact he had begun the year with two Porsche Sprint Challenge Southern Europe outings that had resulted in two wins and fifth in the standings.

9. Nolan Siegel UNITED STATES 20/o
23rd in IndyCar, Le Mans 24H LMP2 winner, 53rd in IMSA LMP2 class, 17th in Indy Nxt (1 W, 1 P)   2023: 3rd in Indy Nxt (2 W, 2 FL), 5th in Asian LMS (1 W), 8th in IMSA LMP2 (2 W), 24th in Intercontinental GT Challenge, 25th in IMSA LMP3 (1 FL)

Photo: McLaren

Siegel won in USF2000 in 2021, USFP2000 in ’22 and Indy Nxt in ’23, so was heading to IndyCar in 2024 rightly timed?

He came third in the Indy Nxt standings last year, and opted for a second season with HMD Motorsports. But his off-season preparations included IndyCar and SF tests, which prompted a change in plan. Dale Coyne Racing had supported his Indy Nxt entry through 2023, and after his IndyCar test with them he signed to contest four races which didn’t clash with Indy Nxt.

His racing schedule began in St. Petersburg, where he took pole and dominated Indy Nxt’s season-opening race. IndyCar’s non-championship $1 Million Challenge at The Thermal Club followed, and Siegel was seventh in his heat so didn’t reach the main race. Rick Ware Racing got involved in running his car for the Long Beach Grand Prix, and he finished a lapped 20th. Siegel was runner-up in the next two Indy Nxt races, and was still second in the points when he left round three of the season.

At the Indianapolis 500 he flipped in practice, then was far too slow to qualify for the race so had a second non-start.

A sorry turn of events meant Augustin Canapino withdrew from racing at Road America, and Siegel dropped out of Indy Nxt to take his seat at Juncos Hollinger Racing. Once in the car, which had previously been run in a commercial alliance with McLaren, Siegel had another weekend of being lapped.

Siegel never appeared in Indy Nxt again, as he then signed a multi-year IndyCar deal with McLaren. There was an instant improvement in qualifying by having a more competitive car, twice being 11th on ovals, and came from 20th to finish seventh at Gateway. On a points-per-race basis he would’ve been ahead of his fellow Indy Nxt graduates, but overall his IndyCar campaign didn’t make an impact.

What brings Siegel into this list is his impressive sportscar career. At the Daytona 24 Hours he was in the LMP2 class’s only Ligier and outpaced his team-mates, then won the Le Mans 24H’s LMP2 class at his first attempt. He did the world’s toughest race with less preparation than rivals due to IndyCar commitments meaning he missed testing. A big achievement.

8. Ollie Gray BRITAIN 19y/o
7th in ELMS, 14th in PCC Italy, 22nd in PSC Southern Europe   2023: 28th in FIA F3   2022: 2nd in British F4 (2 W, 2 P)

Photo: FocusPackMedia – Marcel Wulf

Only in his fourth year of car racing, Gray made a canny career move after a disastrous FIA F3 campaign in 2023. And like Bearman’s rise to F1, it was thanks to the WH Sports management company.

Williams had signed Gray as a junior driver in 2022, and he rewarded its faith by coming second in British F4 with Rodin Carlin. He moved up to F3 with the team, but he and the team were very uncompetitive. Three 14th places were his best results, and he came 28th in the standings.

WH Sports, as with other clients, was quick-moving to find a place where Gray could show off his talents to the world (and of course sponsors) again as soon as possible and found him an ELMS seat alongside IndyCar driver Luca Ghiotto and Novalak.

Campaigns in spec Porsche series with Ombra were added almost immediately after. The PSC Southern Europe season took place between January and March, meaning Gray could get used to racing with a roof over his head early in the year in an environment with less scrutiny than other series. He did two rounds, and penalties cost him a podium on his first outing.

Ghiotto had one LMP2 start to his name prior to the ELMS season, so it was critical for the Inter Europol drivers to learn off each other to be competitive as they couldn’t truly rely on one experienced talent like other line-ups. The combination finished the season opener in 10th, and at Paul Ricard spent two spells in the lead. Their time up front ended with 20 minutes to go as the gearbox went, and a drive-through penalty and race interruptions ended podium ambitions at Imola.

Third place was less than 1.3s away at Spa-Francorchamps, then Gray qualified the car fourth at Mugello and the crew were dominating the race before full course yellows, virtual safety car periods and then red flags brought them back into the pack. Gray was at the wheel then, and tried to reclaim the lead on the restart. Under the next VSC he handed the car over to Ghiotto, who took it from seventh back up to third. The trio finished fifth in the Algarve finale despite Gray ending lap one in 41st after being spun around and then hit.

He also had to pit the car for repairs, but cycled into the lead before making his first proper stop and returning to the track in sixth. Gray was attempting to overtake his team-mate for third before a VSC period began, then he handed the car over. Ghiotto had it in third before a late splash-and-dash pitstop that meant they finished a hard-fought for fifth place.

Gray’s performances did not go unnoticed, and he has now tested a hypercar in America. A big change from 12 months ago.

7. Lorenzo Fluxa SPAIN 20y/o
3rd in ELMS (2 W), 9th in Euroformula (1 W, 1 FL), 12th in Le Mans 24H LMP2, 16th in Int. GT Open   2023-24: 19th in ALMS   2023: 4th in FRegional Middle East, 7th in FRegional Europe

Photo: Marcel Wulf

Victorious in ELMS’ dramatic Algarve finale, and in the opening race at Barcelona, were Cool Racing’s Lorenzo Fluxa, Malthe Jakobsen and Ritomo Miyata.

Fluxa was win-free but competitive in FRegional last year, then stepped up to Euroformula with Motopark for 2024. After one round, in which he took a win, a second and a third, the German team then moved him across to its International GT Open line-up. In the ‘sister’ series to Euroformula, he took three consecutive top-five finishes in a Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo to come 16th in the standings as a part-timer.

ELMS took priority, and the Cool Racing crew’s two wins was accompanied by two retirements. At Paul Ricard they were comfortably leading before car issues forced Jakobsen to retire the car in the final hour, a result that undid their title hopes, then at Imola it was Fluxa who started the car and he kept it clean for an hour-and-a-half to sit in third. But one mistake proved very costly, as a spin as a round of pitstops began meant that when he did pit the car came back out in ninth place.

That result still would’ve earned some crucial points, but stand-in driver Paul-Loup Chatin (since Miyata was racing in F2) then crashed out hard while trying to lap an LMP3 car shortly after the race’s two-hour mark.

At Spa they were in contention to finish third after Fluxa’s time in the car, but in the dramatic squabble for the position late on Jakobsen had to settle for fifth. Fluxa had a battle-filled and fun first two stints at Mugello, but in that time he and several other crews lost far too much time to the cars up front and once his team-mates took over the car dropped to ninth.

The Algarve victory was some justice for a season of learning that had the potential to turn Fluxa and his team-mates into champions. They also did Le Mans, and finished 12th in class.

6. Hunter McElrea NEW ZEALAND 25y/o
IMSA Enduro Cup LMP2 champion (2 W, 1 FL)   2023: 2nd in Indy Nxt (2 W, 2 P, 4 FL)   2022: 4th in Indy Nxt (2 W, 3 P, 1 FL)

Photo: Travis Hinkle

Photo: Chris Jones

The 2023 Indy Nxt runner-up had to wait until July to make his IndyCar debut in Toronto, driving the car Siegel was initially contracted to be in. Afterwards, he boldly claimed he could’ve been “fighting with good pace at the front”.

McElrea was the top rookie in practice, and comfortably faster than Dale Coyne team-mate Toby Sowery, but failed to set a lap in qualifying after crashing and lined up 25th on the grid. He ran as high as ninth before his first pitstop, then 10th in his second stint, before retiring from 20th place.

“Did some cool moves. And then on my last stint, on my outlap I just got in the grey, and just brushed the wall, and then unfortunately a couple laps later the suspension failed from just that little brush. Really unfortunate.”

He then joined Ed Carpenter Racing for post-season testing and was second fastest at The Thermal Club, and is looking for further IndyCar outings in 2025. But his racing future is already secured, after an impressive rookie season in IMSA.

McElrea drove for TDS Racing in the LMP2 class, and only in the five races (ranging from six to 24 hours) that made up the Endurance Cup. The car had already been retired before McElrea got in it at Daytona, which made for an even harder race debut in the Sebring 12 Hours. But on the bumpy track the LMP2 pace was set by McElrea (with the Kiwi put in the car while it was still light), and the TDS car finished 1.127s short of victory.

At Watkins Glen he was again one of the fastest in race conditions, but crashed out in tricky weather conditions. When he returned to the car for the last two IMSA rounds, he was victorious both times. The car finished in the top eight overall in both races, the latter being Petit Le Mans, and meant the crew also won the Endurance Cup. McElrea will stay with TDS for 2025.

5. Arthur Leclerc MONACO 24y/o
4th in ELMS (1 W, 1 FL), Italian GT Endurance champion (2 W, 3 P)   2023: 15th in F2 (1 FL)   2022: 6th in FIA F3 (1 W, 1 FL)

Photo: ACI Sport

Photo: FocusPackMedia - Marcel Wulf

Leclerc spent 2024 learning from some immensely experienced and talented drivers, accelerating his own development as a result. in ELMS he drove an LMP2 car for Panis Racing alongside Charles Milesi (a class winner at Le Mans and champion in WEC) and Manuel Maldonado, while in Italian GT he shared Scuderia Baldini’s Ferrari 296 GT3 with Giancarlo Fisichella, a man with 229 F1 starts and many class wins in IMSA and WEC to his name.

The 24-year-old brother of F1 racer Charles headed to sportscars after a single season in F2 featuring one podium, and following a 2022 in which he had won in FIA F3 and also been FRegional Asian champion.

Although he exited the Ferrari Driver Academy at the end of 2023, Leclerc got a job with the brand as one of its F1 development drivers and as part of that he did several private tests and drove in practice at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

In ELMS he was Panis’s fastest driver in qualifying on his debut, then his team-mates put the car on pole twice later in the season. They turned the first of those into victory at Imola, and went to Algarve contending for the title. But after taking pole, it was a race of going backwards and they finished 16th overall. Despite the sour end, it was a campaign where Leclerc didn’t look like a rookie and Ferrari rewarded him with a hypercar test as well as his F1 running.

Over in Italian GT, the Fisichella/Leclerc car was on pole for three our of four races and won two of them to take the title.

4. Ayumu Iwasa JAPAN 23y/o
5th in Super Formula (1 P)   2023: 4th in F2 (3 W, 1 P, 3 FL)   2022: 5th in F2 (2 W, 2 P, 1 FL)   2021: 12th in FIA F3 (1 W)

Photo: Red Bull

Photo: Red Bull

Failing to become the first Red Bull junior to be Super Formula champion, as a rookie, potentially cost Iwasa a 2025 F1 seat.

Like Pierre Gasly and Liam Lawson before him, he proved himself in F2 but with no berth at Red Bull’s second F1 team was sent off to Japan to drive top-tier single-seaters there. Straight away, Iwasa targeted the title with Team Mugen.

He qualified 11th and finished ninth on his debut at Suzuka, then at Autopolis finished second from pole and at Sportsland SUGO started and finished second. Iwasa missed out on pole by just 0.017s at Fuji Speedway, but fell to 11th on lap one and never recovered from there.

At Twin Ring Motegi he climbed from 13th on the grid to seventh, and in the first race of the Fuji double-header took another second place. The next day was tricky, qualifying 12th and finishing sixth, which put him on the backfoot for Suzuka’s season-ending double-header.

Another front row start for race one, ahead of all of his title rivals, was the perfect base to boost his title hopes from but a technical gremlin left him stranded on the grid. From 20th place, he recovered to ninth in the 31-lap race but was now out of title contention. A “very big frustration” followed as he qualified 11th for race two, had to completely rethink his set-up and could only finish seventh.

He ended the season fifth in the standings, and following that Iwasa made an F1 practice and test outing with RB. But he didn’t do enough to earn a seat with the team, and Honda chose to renew his contract with Mugen instead.

3. Theo Pourchaire FRANCE 21y/o
25th in SF, 28th in IndyCar   2023: F2 champion (1 W, 2 P, 2 FL)   2022: 2nd in F2 (3 W)   2021: 5th in F2 (2 W, 1 P, 3 FL)

Photo: McLaren

Photo: James Black

Pourchaire has already had his mental health tested during his career, but the ups-and-downs of 2024 was a whole new level.

The 2023 F2 champion was sent off to SF by long-time backer Sauber, but only lasted one race there before being left without a race campaign and just his F1 reserve driver duties (which didn’t lead to any free practice appearances).

Then McLaren needed a stand-in driver for IndyCar due to David Malukas being injured, and Pourchaire was handed a brilliant chance to prove himself at single-seaters’ top level and scrub his SF cameo from his mind.

He finished 11th on debut in the Long Beach GP, having never driven an Indy car prior to the weekend, and McLaren used him again at Barber Motorsports Park. The results weren’t good, but internally McLaren was impressed and dropped Malukas to sign Pourchaire (who wasn’t bringing budget) for the rest of the year bar the Indy 500 due to him having no oval experience.

Still only 20, Pourchaire thought he may have found a new racing home and relocated to the USA. He finished 19th on IMS’s road course, kept a cool head while others crashed in Detroit to qualify seventh and finish 10th, then was 13th at Road America. Siegel came along after that and took the seat, and Pourchaire tried to keep his head up.

McLaren still rated him, and when an injured Alexander Rossi withdrew from racing in Toronto there was an obvious stand-in.

“Last-minute call, 10-hour flight, six hours of jet lag, almost no sleep, first time driving in six weeks, straight to qualifying & new track. That’s a lot of problems to manage, but we made it work with McLaren!” he beamed afterwards. “From 26 to 14th in the race here in Toronto, by far the craziest experience of my life.”

Upon the expiry of his 2024 contract with Sauber, Pourchaire was announced as Peugeot’s test and development driver in WEC after he impressed in a hypercar test. He will find out next year if his signature is still wanted in F1 and IndyCar.

2. Jonny Edgar BRITAIN 20y/o
ELMS champion (1 W), 30th in IMSA LMP2   2023: 13th in FIA F3 (1 W)   2022: 12th in FIA F3 (2 FL)   2021: 18th in FIA F3

Photo: Marcel Wulf

Photo: FocusPackMedia - Jan Patrick Wagner

Edgar’s name was mentioned so many times in ELMS commentary this year, as AO by TF Sport went on a title charge.

Like Leclerc, he was able to soak up the experience of team-mates Louis Deletraz and Robert Kubica, who had already won ELMS and WEC titles together. Yet another crown was clearly the aim for those two, and Edgar stepped up to the plate.

He couldn’t outpace his team-mates in qualifying, but that’s nothing to be ashamed of given the standard they were setting, and in races he was strong wheel-to-wheel and also able to handle lapping traffic without too much trouble. The worst result came on his debut, as the crew lost a lap due to pitstop timing in relation to a safety car period.

They finished third at Paul Ricard, Edgar battled for second through the first two stints at Imola and his team-mates were able to retain the position, and at Spa the trio took victory from pole. The points leaders finished fifth at Mugello, and coming through the choatic Algarve finale in second place was more than enough to deliver the title.

Edgar warmed up for his ELMS campaign by racing an LMP2 car at Daytona and Sebring, and in the latter he was driving for the final stint in the middle of the night. He passed more experienced drivers to finish fourth in class, 7.603s off victory. For 2025, Edgar will continue in IMSA’s LMP2 class while also driving a Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R for TF Sport in WEC.

1. Christian Rasmussen DENMARK 24y/o
22nd in IndyCar, Daytona 24H LMP2 winner    2023: Indy Nxt champion (5 W, 5 P, 5 FL), 11th in IMSA LMP2 (1 FL)

Photo: Christian Rasmussen

Unlike other IndyCar rookies, Rasmussen did not have a race-winning car at his disposal this season and so 22nd in the standings, with a single top-10 finish and three missed races as ECR team boss Ed Carpenter took over his car for several oval races, made him the most impressive newcomer to single-seaters’ top level.

Although Mid-Ohio was where his best results came, as he qualified eighth and finished ninth, there were other events where he made more of an impact. At Barber he was in fourth before his final pitstop, a mechanical issue forced him to retire in Detroit after a brilliant cool-headed race spent mostly fighting for seventh or eighth place.

When Rasmussen did get to drive on ovals, he also impressed in the races. At the Indy 500 he was one of many Chevrolet-powered drivers who had engine issues in qualifying, but from 24th on the grid finished 12th and only 5.3s behind the winner in a 200-lap race that ran green through its final quarter. He ran as high as fourth, and never lower than 22nd.

In race one around the Milwaukee Mile he did go a lap down but also got up to sixth place and ultimately finished 11th. He was one of few drivers actually able to make overtakes in the final stint. The next day (after yet another engine change copped him a grid penalty) he ran his first lap in a podium position, but finished 16th after being one of several drivers who ended up on a very bad seven-stop strategy.

Rasmussen concluded his season with a 14th place, and before making his debut he also won the LMP2 class at Daytona.

Not long after the IndyCar season ended, ECR announced a multi-year deal for Rasmussen be one of its full-time drivers.

The post Formula Scout’s Class of 2023 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Sauber Motorsport

Sauber has announced that Theo Pourchaire and Zane Maloney, its Formula 1 reserve drivers this season, have left the team.

It marks the end of a six-year association with Sauber for the 21-year-old Pourchaire, who was one of the first drivers signed by its academy when it was launched in 2019.

That year he was ADAC Formula 4 champion, having come third in French F4 as a car racing rookie in 2018, and he went on to be 2020 FIA Formula 3 Championship runner-up, 2022 Formula 2 runner-up and then 2023 champion of F1’s primary feeder series.

By then he was already on reserve driver duties, relocating to Switzerland to work more closely with the team, and a year ago Sauber decided to keep him in that position for 2024 while freeing him to pursue a race seat outside of F1.

Pourchaire signed with Team Impul in Super Formula, then became a stand-in driver for Sauber’s rival McLaren but in IndyCar.

After just one race in Japan, Pourchaire dropped his SF programme as McLaren was impressed by his two races with them and signed him on a deal that included all remaining races bar the Indianapolis 500.

That contract lasted 40 days (during which time three races took place) before the Frenchman was dropped for a paying driver, and his best finish was 10th. Surprisingly, McLaren later utilised the USA-based Pourchaire as a stand-in once more.

Last month, Pourchaire forwent his F1 duties for a weekend to contest the World Endurance Championship’s rookie test. He drove the Peugeot 98X, one of the cars in the top Hypercar class of prototype sportscars, and Peugeot has since signed him as its test and development driver for 2025.

While he has not earned the more coveted reserve driver spot, Peugeot has confirmed it will in fact use him as one when required. Sauber announced Pourchaire’s exit on the same day as he started his new role at Peugeot.

“This is an incredible opportunity. I see it as a fresh start,” said Pourchaire of his sportscar switch. “Endurance cars are highly advanced and cutting-edge in terms of technology, making them similar to F1 cars.”

Maloney kicked off his car racing career in 2019 by becoming British F4 champion, then was eighth in Euroformula, stepped down to Formula Regional Europe and was fourth in that championship and then up to FIA F3 where he was championship runner-up and earned a spot in the Red Bull Junior Team for 2023 as well as becoming one of Red Bull’s F1 reserve drivers.

He came 10th in his rookie season, losing his Red Bull backing but being signed as Andretti Global’s Formula E reserve driver and then as one of Sauber’s reserves for 2024. The 21-year-old Barbadan came fourth in his sophomore F2 campaign, despite ending it early to focus on his new role racing in FE for Lola Yamaha Abt. He debuted this month, finishing 12th in the Sao Paulo E-Prix.

The post Sauber confirms departure of F1 reserve drivers Pourchaire and Maloney appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Reigning Formula 2 champion Theo Pourchaire and his former team-mate Victor Martins have got call-ups to drive in the World Endurance Championship’s rookie test.

The French pair are Formula 1 juniors for Sauber and Alpine respectively, and their combined efforts won ART Grand Prix the teams’ title in F2 last year. Martins was fifth in the standings that season, and is currently eighth in his sophomore campaign.

WEC’s rookie test takes place at Bahrain on November 3, and is split into two sessions. The top-tier Le Mans Hypercar protototypes that Martins and Pourchaire will get a taste of will be shared with other drivers.

• Read more: Why Martins needs to avoid repeating Pourchaire’s F2 path

Martins will pilot the Alpine A424, a car which is developed and run independently of the F1 team within Alpine’s motorsport portfolio.

“I am super happy with this opportunity, and I am very grateful to Alpine Endurance Team for allowing me to continue learning in the world of motorsport,” said the 23-year-old. “It is an opportunity for me to continue to build my experience with new engineers and a new car, as well as an opportunity to show my potential.

“Although I am very focused on my single-seater journey, it is a challenge that I accept with pleasure and I hope that we will maximize the rookie test day, both on my side for learning, but also to allow the team to have good data as part of their development. I can’t wait to discover this Hypercar, which looks very fast!”

• Read more: Does junior single-seaters have a place in the hypercar driver market?

The 21-year-old Pourchaire, who has raced in Super Formula and IndyCar part-time this year, will also get behind the wheel of a French machine since he has been chosen by Peugeot to drive its 9X8.

He will share driving duties with Clement Novalak, who won once from 58 starts in F2 before switching over to the European Le Mans Series this year to drive second-tier LMP2 prototype sportscars.

The post Martins and Pourchaire get hypercar call-ups for WEC rookie test appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: Formula Motorsport Ltd

A French long-time F1 junior wins two F3 races with ART GP, joins them in F2 the next year and comes fifth in the points. Rather than live up to their title favourite tag the year after, their confidence gets severely tested

Health, more than skill or knowledge, is the primary determinant of human performance. And in sport, being in top shape means strong mental health as well as being in peak physical condition.

Theo Pourchaire is an example of a driver who has been let down in this respect by his mental health more than once, and returning to his happiest and highest performing state earlier this year in IndyCar (before losing his seat in a way that made headlines worldwide) may have improved his results in that series and his career as a whole but not his chances of racing in Formula 1.

That was shown when the Sauber team, which he is the reserve driver for, chose his birthday to announce that it would run the sportscar-racing active Robert Shwartzman in free practice one at the Dutch Grand Prix. His former team-mate Victor Martins needs to avoid being shunned in a similar way, which requires him to not repeat Pourchaire’s F2 path…

Theo Pourchaire

In July 2020, Pourchaire became the youngest winner in GP3/FIA Formula 3 Championship history aged 16, and after turning 17 made his Formula 2 debut in November with the often struggling HWA Racelab team. He may have finished no higher than 18th in his four races, but took a confidence boost.

“I learned a lot for next year,” he said. “And for sure from the F3 drivers, I’m the most prepared driver for next season.”

Pourchaire had come second to Oscar Piastri in F3’s six-way title fight, and only three of his title rivals were F2-bound. They all started 2021 strongly there though. Liam Lawson won and David Beckmann was third in the opening race at Bahrain, and Piastri won race two. Meanwhile ART Grand Prix driver Pourchaire’s best result in the first four races was sixth.

Pourchaire in Monaco

However during round two in Monaco he became the youngest ever poleman in single-seater racing’s second tier, achieved by a big margin in laptime terms around a short lap, then the youngest winner in F1’s primary feeder series. Cue another bold statement, saying “I just disconnected my brain” during qualifying after being “not super confident” in practice.

That weekend put the long-time Sauber junior into the running for a 2022 F1 seat at the Alfa Romeo Racing team that Sauber ran, but he fractured his arm in a crash and fell to sixth in the standings during round three in Baku and by the time he made his F1 test debut in August it was Alpine junior Guanyu Zhou who was favourite for an Alfa Romeo seat.

Pourchaire won a sprint race and was second in a feature race in the season’s second half, far off the raised expectations, but was still in title contention when Zhou’s graduation from F2 was confirmed in November. Alfa Romeo still had a plan for Pourchaire, giving him a test driver role and making clear that should he win the F2 title in 2022 then an F1 seat could be his.

Two wins in the first three rounds of his sophomore season put him in the points lead and indicated that staying at ART GP was the correct choice, but after that he was always chasing MP Motorsport’s Felipe Drugovich.

Once he dropped to second, Pourchaire claimed his approach was “to take each race as it comes” and the title was not on his mind, but clearly no longer being the chased rattled him and it only took one race of finishing behind his team-mate for him to say: “My team-mate was faster than me, and that’s not normal. I can’t accept that.”

Sometimes Pourchaire – still only 18 – seemed entirely focused on F2 and therefore when things went wrong it stung. A lot. Other times his confidence in making it to F1 carried him, but also proved to be an ultimately destructive distraction. And he started to recognise that, as he admitted in an incredibly candid conversation with Formula Scout that year.

Once the F2 title fell out of Pourchaire’s reach, Alfa Romeo added a second season to Zhou’s contract. In October the team handed Pourchaire his F1 free practice debut, then announced he would be reserve driver in 2023.

Photo: Alfa Romeo

Frederic Vasseur, who brought Pourchaire into the Sauber setup and was team principal, left for Ferrari in December but the restructured leadership had faith in their protege (albeit not enough to give him an F1 seat) and chose to fully fund a third F2 season with ART GP for Pourchaire and with the same target set. Would the 19-year-old’s mindset be different this time?

He moved to Switzerland to be close to Sauber’s factory, working day-to-day with the F1 crew in a way that aided his mental strength, and began his season with pole at Bahrain. He revealed that through winter “I worked a lot on my qualifying pace because last year I struggled a lot”, an admission he hadn’t been making in 2022.

Pourchaire added he was already “much more relaxed than last year” and that “it will be important to be focused on only myself, my driving”, and after converting pole into a dominant victory in Bahrain said “I could have driven a lot faster”. Another bold statement followed by another downturn as he only scored once in the next five races.

He was lacking qualifying confidence again by round two, but after reclaiming the points lead with a podium in round four claimed he was now better in qualifying and more consistent in races. Then said: “I’m not superstitious a lot, but…”

In the middle of a conversation about his increased involvement in Sauber’s F1 operation, Pourchaire made a contrasting remark that “I’m putting all my efforts to do a good job in F2”. While he claimed the former helped the latter, after round seven he had scored less than at that point in 2022 and was second in the standings. A double podium in round 10 returned him to the top of the table, but the next round he had an injury-inducing crash. A familiar turn of events.

He bounced back with pole in the penultimate round at Monza, “a crazy feeling” after a tail-off in qualifying form, and grew his lead to 25 points. Two weeks later, Sauber renewed Zhou’s and Pourchaire’s contracts and started work on finding the latter a racing programme (with F2 a possibility if he lost the title) for 2024.

By the time he reached the F2 finale, the title was comfortably in Pourchaire’s grasp. But driving in F1 practice left him “mentally, physically, really tired” and several factors combined to set up his worst qualifying result since 2022.

Photo: Alfa Romeo

“I’m young and I still have the time and I know I will have an [F1 race] opportunity in the future,” he stated confidently in the Yas Marina paddock while wearing his Alfa Romeo overalls.

Pourchaire won the title, but the weekend was “stressful” and a huge mental loss despite taking personal pride in his drives to seventh and fifth place. Had he failed to become champion, it was perfect ammunition for claims that Sauber made the right decision with its 2024 line-up, and even a line that Sauber’s new management could have used to defend its driver strategy.

But since he did win the title, aged 20, all he was left to think about was that F2 had been a means to an end that had failed.

“There is no [rule], it’s not because you are an F2 champion that you will have a place in F1,” said a “dissapointed” Pourchaire. “I did my best. And the goal that Sauber Academy told me, it was to win the championship, and I did it.”

He already knew that spending 2024 doing test and practice sessions in an Alfa Romeo would “not be the case for me”, so a move to Super Formula was lined up to keep him race fit. A new environment was also an opportunity where he could perform at the same level inside the cockpit and, regardless of the results, be seen in a different light.

While not outright acknowledging the perception of his F2 results hadn’t already done so, Pourchaire said that by racing in SF he could show the F1 paddock – rather than just Sauber – “that I’m able to be really fast and that I deserve a place there”.

Both elements of that statement were key, because it was one spectacularly fast weekend that many saw as Pourchaire’s peak which he then failed to live up to, rather than his most impressive achievement in his career being that he was the driver who best navigated the ups and downs of an F2 season to become its champion. Taking the title with the second-lowest winning rate in the history of second-tier single-seaters explains that mismatch.

Being fastest wasn’t going to achieve that title goal, and drivers admitting to dialling down pace to be more consistent has been far more pronounced with F2’s new car this year than in 2023, but being fastest still sets expectations and the driver who was quickest last year was Pourchaire’s rookie team-mate Victor Martins…

Pourchaire, Ayumu Iwasa & Martins

2024 and beyond

Pourchaire’s place on the SF grid with Team Impul was confirmed 16 days after his F2 crowning, and on his debut at Suzuka this March he qualified 16th and finished 18th.

Although Pourchaire did not know an opportunity to race in another series was coming that would take him away from SF, he already knew he was unlikely to be on the grid beyond round two since he was funding his own seat. He told AUTOhebdo it was proving “almost impossible”, and the stress from that would no doubt have negatively impacted his debut race weekend.

It mattered little since an 18th place in an SF race is scrutinised very differently to a points finish in F2, and the result had no discernible impact on his reputation. In fact, the fact that he now had experience racing a top-tier single-seater put him in the orbit of Formula E and IndyCar teams, and McLaren came calling to Sauber with a request to use Pourchaire for two IndyCar races. As soon as he had ‘McLaren IndyCar driver’ next to his name, Pourchaire was no longer defined by his F2 career.

In press sessions after he secured the seat for the rest of the season, Pourchaire was full of positivity and gratitude, attributing the same language he had previously used to describe F1 to IndyCar. He also leant on McLaren’s confidence in him being able to get the job done on track rather than his own self-belief (or occasional lack of), a contrast to how he had carried himself publicly while waiting for opportunities, and his relationship, with Sauber to go to the next step.

An example is how he described his first oval running, at the fabled Indianapolis Motor Speedway, grinning as he recalled an experience that tested him in the cockpit.

“Ovals are crazy fast, and at the end I was so tired because I was really – I was a bit stressed and I didn’t want to do any mistakes because at that speed, if you do a small mistake, you know it can be really bad. But I enjoyed it,” he said.

Photo: Chris Jones

“It’s really important to work with your engineers, feel the car and have a lot of confidence. And I really can’t wait to do my first oval race. It’s going to be new to me. But that’s why I’m here now in IndyCar, I love it.”

He credited team-mate Alexander Rossi and McLaren’s IndyCar sporting director Tony Kanaan for giving “a lot of confidence” to him over the course of that test and the races he went on to do (none of which were on ovals).

On one of the many occasions he was asked about his F1 chances and remaining at Sauber, Pourchaire replied:

“I feel like I’ve still at least two or three years maybe to get another opportunity in F1. But I think that for sure the biggest opportunity I got in my life [was] to be able to drive in IndyCar. So right now, I’m not thinking too much about F1.”

He added: “I’m focused [on this], and that’s my main priority to hopefully win here one day.”

While he “for sure” remained ‘pissed off’ about not being on F1’s grid, in one reply he said he was “really, really, really, really happy to be a professional racing driver” in IndyCar instead, emphasising “that’s a great achievement” for a 20-year-old.

New friendships were struck, including with 2004 IndyCar champion Kannan, Pourchaire moved into a flat in Indianapolis and was getting plaudits for performances despite only once finishing inside the top 10. He had proven himself in a way he was unable to do by staying in F2 for three years, and said “I think more and more young drivers will come here in IndyCar”.

Then McLaren made the surprise decision to terminate his contract. A sad ending, which turned out not to be the ending when he got called up again to substitute for the injured Rossi in Toronto, but a set of events that has earned him more goodwill than being overlooked by Sauber ever did and made him a desired talent by teams in several different series.

Pourchaire and Kanaan

Victor Martins

Martins may not have snuck in two F2 rounds before his rookie season, but he could still play the preparation card since he had two years in Formula Regional and two years in F3 under his belt before reaching F2, and won titles in both.

He arrived in F2 aged 21, and his rookie season in 2023 marked his third year with ART GP and fifth as a junior of the Alpine (nee Renault) F1 team. But it was his first time racing against Pourchaire since their karting careers, and while he could rely on having an older head on his shoulders, his team-mate had two seasons of F2 experience already in the bank.

Martins qualified second on debut and finished his first F2 race in third, saying after the sprint race that he needed “another approach” for feature races and that the biggest thing he learned was to “manage a bit more my emotion”. Immediately identifying what turned out to be his two main weaknesses showed maturity, but identifying is different to eradicating.

Two weeks later he took pole by a massive 0.744s in Jeddah, putting him 10th on the sprint race grid. He converted that into another podium and set the fastest lap, but again said he found it difficult “to manage my emotions” in the fight for victory. However, not wanting to make it sound like a repeating issue, Martins added: “I got so much experience [from] many years in Formula Renault and then F3. I got a lot of maturity, I know how to manage myself, manage my emotion throughout the race.”

Two points-free events followed, in which he still qualified third and eighth, but then Martins had improved form after Alpine handed him his first F1 test at Monza. He made reference to their “perfect support” as he then scored in the next 12 F2 races, rising from 15th to fifth in the standings and repeatedly outperforming Pourchaire on Fridays and Saturdays.

In conversation with Formula Scout, he stated his improved performance wasn’t related to a change in confidence.

“I’m fully confident, I don’t lose it. It’s just a matter of putting the level of pushing at the right level,” he said. “Performance has been great, even better than what I was expecting.”

Martins at the Red Bull Ring

An admission of dialling down the pace in the name of consistency, and a strategy which served him well through 2023.

The first, and only, win of his rookie campaign came in round eight at Silverstone from his third pole of the year and a few more podiums after that meant he remained fifth in the standings with an average of 5.7 points per race. Pourchaire had averaged six en route to the same championship position in his rookie season.

Martins’ approach felt like he spent his rookie season setting up a title challenge for 2024. And his consistency, having the joint most poles, being fastest on average for single-lap pace and second on long-run pace (although only getting the seventh biggest feature race points tally from that) meant that was what many expected of him this year.

The 22-year-old was therefore also talked of as a contender for a 2025 Alpine seat, and he chose to stay at ART GP for his sophomore F2 campaign. That continuity has not provided the desired performance boost.

F2’s new car for 2024 eradicated any advantage the team had held, and with no established pecking order a poor performance was harder to identify from the outside without driver feedback.

Martins went without points through the first two rounds, but said he was “not concerned”, maintained an aim of winning the title, reiterated he had confidence in the people around him and said while he wanted to learn what had gone wrong he did not want to give it too much focus. Having seen closely how Pourchaire handled the ups and downs of having title-contending tag on him, potentially Martins was learning from the mental mistakes of his former team-mate.

While he had been outqualified by his new team-mate Zak O’Sullivan at Bahrain, where pre-season testing had been, his experience of Jeddah enabled him to beat his rookie team-mate on one-lap pace. However, it was after going fourth fastest there that he admitted to qualifying now being a weakness and that the origin of the shortfall was yet to be identified.

O’Sullivan and Martins

Martins scored in both races of round three in Melbourne, but was still only 18th in the standings. His mindset was that as long as the results continued to improve, his F1 seat prospects would do the same.

“I will say I’m only seeing an opportunity if I succeed, if I do well in F2. And that means it’s down to the work I will do, to the results I will show, and nothing else,” he said. “Actually I don’t see an opportunity if I don’t succeed in F2. So I’m not actually focusing on it right now.”

Pushing that distraction down the line seemed to be effective in that Martins, if to be compared directly to Pourchaire in the paddock, was less tormented by bad results. In fact, he may have learned directly from his team-mate.

But Martins’ F1 future was not going to be dictated by his results, but by the Alpine management. And that kept changing.

Team principal Marcin Budkowski and non-executive director Alain Prost (a big supporter of French talent) left at the start of 2022 and the former was replaced by Otmar Szafnauer. He fluffed the promotion of Alpine junior and F2 champion Oscar Piastri to an F1 seat, with Piastri leaving for McLaren against the team’s wishes and Szafnauer later getting sacked.

The CEO and sporting director roles changed too, two positions which would have a say on who gets to sit in the car, as well as an exodus of technical staff over the last 12 months that have clearly hampered the team’s competitivity. Then this summer Flavio Briatore, who successfully but infamously led the team in the 2000s, returned in an executive advisor role.

Briatore would not have taken on a role unless he could leave his mark, and has been busy doing just that. He’s made some frank comments in interviews, but unlike other major F1 figures he’s not been asked much – and therefore talked – about his team’s junior drivers. Martins had to prove his worth to the new management at Alpine, and there was little to verify his own comments with as journalists in the support paddock not easily able to catch an Alpine figure in a press pen.

Martins at the Red Bull Ring

But then some unknowns were answered when Alpine announced in August it would promote reserve driver Jack Doohan to a race seat for 2025. The new management were not going to wait and see if Martins could turn his season around.

Martins had finished ninth in the Imola and Monaco feature races, then victory in the Barcelona sprint race lifted him from 20th to 13th in the standings and he did it on Briatore’s first weekend back in the F1 paddock. After “not understanding” his qualifying struggles, Martins and ART GP could now “start to see some good things on data and I start also to feel I’m confident in the car”. The result was a significant and timely mental boost.

“I need to see that I’m capable of doing things right from the start to the finish and show the team that I’m still here, because in motorsport one day, you can be a hero, and the day after, if you don’t perform, you don’t do a proper result, you are zero.”

Hero and zero are extremes which are not useful performance indicators, but Martins did not seem overly disheatened by the nadir that followed: a dire Red Bull Ring weekend where a struggle for pace meant he failed to score.

At Silverstone he was fifth in the feature race, he was second in both Hungaroring races then an electrical issue relegated him to last on the grid for both races at Spa-Francorchamps. It was there where ART GP boss Sebastien Philippe said the team had finally figured out its qualifying woes and could have been a pole contender, and he appeared to be right.

Martins was 0.188 seconds off pole at Monza and was sprint race runner-up, then in Baku qualified third and a slow pitstop denied him feature race victory. Those were also the first rounds where getting to F1 with Alpine in 2025 was off the table.

“It’s life, you need to accept and move on,” he said afterwards. About the pitstop, rather than Alpine’s choice for 2025.

Martins’ recent form means he is now on average the ninth fastest driver on absolute pace and seventh on average starting position from qualifying sessions contested (excluding Gabriele Mini who only raced in Baku), and remains in mathematical contention for the title.

Electrical issues strike

That is an impressive turnaround, but it matters little. Martins needs to not get tied into thinking his presence in F2 now is about what he can do to unseat Doohan – the first junior the Alpine Academy and its predecessors had put in F1 in 16 years.

Two French talents with long-term F1 backing, neither of whom ever actually looked like they were going to be utilised in F1 while starring in F2. Both set very high expectations for themselves in their second years, paid the mental price when they weren’t reaching the targets set then successfully worked they way back to being one of the best in the field.

Both also wondered whether fully concentrating on F2 was a help or a hindrance for their results, and it would be a shame if at the end of 2025 both are F2 champions and neither are in F1.

Age is often a disadvantage in F1’s support paddock since youth is currency, but it should be an advantage for Martins who is two years older than Pourchaire.

He’s seen what a third year in F2 did for Pourchaire and what proving himself outside of the F1 circus did for his wellbeing, and the greater maturity Martins has shown with his own struggles this year hopefully means he is a driver who knows the benefit of getting to choose to leave F2 on his own accord rather than being ruled out by budget, his F1 hopes ending or even by becoming champion.

The post Why Martins needs to avoid repeating Pourchaire’s F2 path appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Paul Hurley

Theo Pourchaire will make a surprise return to McLaren’s IndyCar line-up on the streets of Toronto this weekend to replace the injured Alexander Rossi.

The relationship between the team and its drivers has been one of the hot topics of the season, with McLaren initially signing David Malukas to drive its #6 car. He never actually raced for the team though, as an injury meant Pourchaire and Callum Ilott stood in for him through the first five races.

After that, Malukas’s contract was terminated and Pourchaire was signed for the rest of the season. But his contract only lasted 40 days before he too got dropped for Indy Nxt graduate Nolan Sieigel, who with budget to bring to the team got signed on a multi-year contract that led to him taking over the car immediately.

A month after being dropped, Pourchaire finally opened up about the ordeal but said he had left “on amicable terms”. And just a day after making that remark, he is now back in the team after Rossi broke his right thumb in Toronto practice and McLaren needed a replacement driver for the rest of the event.

Although Pourchaire now lives in the USA, he is currently in Europe and so will miss the next practice session as he travels over to Canada to make his IndyCar return.

During his five-race stint in IndyCar earlier this year, the 20-year-old Frenchman’s best race result was a 10th place and his best starting position was seventh.

Rossi has almost a month before the next IndyCar race to recover, and while he plans to be back in the cockpit for the race on the Gateway oval he will be back out of it just another month after that as he will leave McLaren at the end of the season.

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Photo: Joe Skibinski

Reigning Formula 2 champion Theo Pourchaire has said he left McLaren’s IndyCar squad “on amicable terms”, after being dropped by them a month ago.

McLaren signed David Malukas to drive its #6 car this year, but he fractured his hand in a mountain biking accident in February and after surgery was forced to sit out the start of the season. Callum Ilott and Pourchaire subsitituted for him through the first five races, then Pourchaire was signed in May for the rest of the season having impressed the team.

Just 40 days later it was announced he was being replaced by Indy Nxt race-winner Nolan Siegel, who had signed a long-term deal to keep him in the seat until at least the end of 2026.

Pourchaire did not speak to media immediately after being dropped, with his first public comment arriving in the form of a tweet two days later, which said: “I’m run by passion, hard work, dedication, god. I will be back.”

Having moved to Switzerland while racing in F2 so he could work more closely with the Sauber F1 team he is the reserve driver of, Pourchaire then moved to the USA once it was clear he would need to be there regularly for IndyCar, and he still has a flat there as he surveys future IndyCar opportunities.

Earlier this week the 20-year-old Frenchman conducted his first on-the-record interview since his departure with French magazine AUTOhebdo. He provided details about how his time at McLaren came to an end, the scale of his work with Sauber for the rest of this year and what he sees happening in his future.

Pourchaire then posted to social media again today with a more public statement, seeking to clarify some of the comments he had made in his interview.

“While I was surprised by Arrow McLaren’s decision to take me out of the car ahead of Laguna Seca, we ended on amicable terms. Sure, it’s dissapointing not to be racing with the team, but they’ve held up and respected all the areas of the contract, and Zak [Brown, McLaren CEO], Gavin [Ward, team principal] and Tony [Kanaan, sporting director], along with the rest of the team, have been fully supportive of me and my wish to get back into an Indy car or other racing,” said Pourchaire.

“I’m appreciative of the time I had with the team, there are no hard feelings, and I hope this help corrects the perception there’s been about the team and myself.”

Tony Kanaan quote tweeted the statement, adding: “Teddy, I would repeat out loud what we spoke on the phone today but we will keep between us and put the plan in action soon. ”

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Photo: Joe Skibinski

McLaren has announced that reigning Formula 2 champion Theo Pourchaire will drive for the team through the remainder of the IndyCar season bar the Indianapolis 500.

Pourchaire made his IndyCar debut in last month’s Long Beach Grand Prix as a substitute for the injured David Malukas and finished 11th, earning him another call-up for the race at Barber Motorsports Park a week later.

Malukas was then released by the team as his injury recovery continued, and McLaren signed a deal with Pourchaire to drive in this weekend’s race on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course and then again from next month’s Detroit Grand Prix to the end of the 17-round season in September.

He will miss this month’s Indy 500, which runs on IMS’s oval layout, since he has no oval experience in his racing career. Three days ago McLaren ran him in a private test on the Gateway oval, since he will race there in August.

“The IndyCar has some of the best racing in motorsport, and now I can say that with experience. I’m excited to take on this challenge with Arrow McLaren for the rest of the season,” said Pourchaire.

“This is a special opportunity, and I am committed to learning and improving as we get on track each race weekend. I’ve enjoyed my first two races with the team, and I know we have plenty of potential in front of us. Of course, I would like to thank Zak [Brown, McLaren CEO] Gavin [Ward, McLaren’s IndyCar team principal] and Tony [Kanaan, McLaren’s sporting director], as well as the Sauber F1 Team, for making this all possible.”

While Pourchaire will continue to be Kick Sauber’s reserve driver in Formula 1 alongside his IndyCar commitments, he will drop his Super Formula programme in Japan. Only one race of that has taken place so far, which he finished 18th in.

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