F2 World Champion in 2023 and current Peugeot driver in WEC: Théo Pourchaire talks to GPKingdom! – EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Lead driver of the number 94 Peugeot 9X8 in WEC and former Formula 2 World Champion: Théo Pourchaire certainly needs no introduction! The career of the French driver, born in 2003, has just begun, with the ambition of winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans, his home race, and having success overseas in the Indy 500!
I’d like to start by asking you how was your journey to become a full-time racer and how did your journey in motorsport begin? Who was your inspiration?
“I started when I was three years old, so really young because my dad was a big motorsport fan and he just brought me to the racetrack when I was three years old for the first time, put me in a small go-kart and from then, my hero was at the time Michael Schumacher, even if when I started racing he was, I think, stopping at one. But I grew up watching all the Ferrari drivers, but especially Michael Schumacher, and he was like a legend. So with the red car, when you’re a kid, it’s always impressive. And yeah, after that, it became a passion really quick. And yeah, we just kept going like that. Today, it’s my job, of course, it’s a dream job. But yeah, first of all, I think it’s a passion, so that’s good.”
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How was your progression through the junior series categories? And do you feel that those experiences shaped you as a racing driver and for the pressure that you are feeling now in the WEC and in general in motorsport?
“I think the good thing for me was that I was always the youngest, or almost the youngest in every category. And it was difficult to be at a good level straight away because I was lacking experience in Formula 4, in Formula 3, Formula 2. But I was the youngest, so I had to step up, be a bit more mature than the other teenagers, so I think today it’s helping me a lot. It’s helping me a lot, definitely. I’m only 22, but I feel like I have a lot of experience and I can use it because I drove a lot of race cars from Formula 2, Formula 1, IndyCars, Formula LMP2, Formula E, hypercar now. I think I’m just missing NASCAR and I could complete all the categories. So it’s helping me a lot today. I suffered from it a bit in my career, but yeah, it’s a good thing. And also being teammates with people like Loic Duval as well, with a lot of experience. Also, he’s making me more comfortable because he’s French, first of all, so we can communicate super easily together, and he’s won Le Mans, he won the World Endurance Championship, he did a lot of things in his career, so he can help me feel more comfortable in my first professional experience. So yeah, it’s pretty good.”
In 2023, you achieved what many drivers dream of, becoming a World Champion. I was your biggest fan, I wanted you to win the category! What do you think mattered the most when you won Formula 2 title and what were the highlights of the year?
“First of all, thank you very much. It’s good to hear that. And yeah, I think what mattered the most in this championship was the consistency. And I think a lot of people underestimate the fact that I was super, super consistent that year. And I truly think that we didn’t have the best car in terms of performance with ART Grand Prix. We had a really good car in qualifying, but compared to the two first seasons of Formula 2, in the races we were lacking a bit of pace. Thanks to my experience in Formula 2, I could manage to do good race starts every time, great overtakes, I would keep my positions, and a lot of times I was in the top three in qualifying. At the end of the year, I only got one victory and two pole positions. But to be fully honest, with a little bit more luck, I think I could have probably had more victories. But it’s ok, I’m proud of myself. I was really young in my first F2 season, still the youngest ever feature race winner still today. And in the second season, I was super unlucky with a lot of mechanical failures and lacking a bit of performance, but still finishing vice champion, which is not a bad result. I really wanted to win this championship. And thanks to this championship now I have this professional opportunity with Peugeot. After 2023 it was a bit of a tough time. But yeah, today I’m starting to be back slowly.”
I want to remember a podium in Paul Ricard, in 2022, where you honored Antoine Hubert and Jules Bianchi after the podium. Do you think that their deaths were crucial in your driving style? Do you think that those deaths taught you a lesson or as a racing driver, when you put your helmet on, you just think about driving?
“It was very tough for me in my career to witness those losses, especially Jules Bianchi. I was really young, but I remember this day and I was quite close to him because his mechanics in karting were my mechanics as well. I have a picture in my phone with him on the karting track. And it’s a great, great memory. So, yeah, quite tough. And also the loss of Antoine. I was in Formula 4, so close to Formula 2. I knew Antoine a little bit, not as much as Jules, but I knew him because, you know, I was at the FFSA Academy, the school for the racing drivers in Le Mans. And he was in this school, Antoine. It’s super tragic. When you’re young and you’re witnessing that racing as well, it’s a bit scary, I have to say. It wasn’t super easy mentally, but I think it’s helped me as well. Just to remember that it’s a dangerous sport and I have to be careful and I have to, you know, do the best job I can on the track also, you know, trying to avoid incidents and protect myself. Sometimes drivers forget that, but I’m honest. And yeah, sometimes it can be scary for sure. But when I have the helmet on, I try to only think about racing. I give my best. I know it’s a dangerous sport. I just try to protect myself as much as possible.”
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After Formula 2, you came very close to reaching Formula 1. You did some tests with Alfa Romeo. What was missing to secure a Formula 1 seat?
“Still to this day, I don’t really know what was missing because I was really, really quick in the F1 simulator. Mercedes took me because I was quick in the simulator. I won a lot of races. It’s not like I just won the Formula 2 championship. I always finished fifth, fifth is my lowest finishing position in the championship. So, yeah, it’s a bit difficult to not at least have an opportunity, you know, just to show yourself and show what I was capable of doing in Formula 1. But it’s not my priority now. My priority is to find a consistent program year after year and to have the chance to compete in the biggest races in the world to enjoy it. Sai, earning money is also important because then I’m becoming an adult, so it’s also important. I think for sure it would be great if the Formula 2 champion at least could get at least one chance to go to F1. I don’t know how exactly. It’s not like football or basketball where you can, I don’t know, draft a player, draft a driver. But I think a system like that could be interesting as well for the people to be interested in watching Formula 3 and Formula 2 because they could potentially see a future Formula 1 world champion. But now you just watch Formula 3 and Formula 2 and maybe there’s none of those. In total there are probably 50 drivers in Formula 2, Formula 3 that will never go to F1, you know, probably, which is, in my opinion, ridiculous, but the sport is like this.”
There are different paths, you’re still having a great career even if you’re not in Formula 1, so it’s not all about F1. Moving onto your current career, you’re in the World Endurance Championship, moving to WEC is a great transition, because you’re going from single seater racing to a different type of motorsport and cars. I want to ask you how this transition was for you and are you enjoying having to share your car?
“It’s an honor and a great opportunity to be representing Peugeot, a French brand, French manufacturer in the World Endurance Championship and also this year for the first time for me in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in a hypercar. So it’s going to be great. It’s going to be a great season. The work is a bit different because, of course, sharing the car is not what I prefer as a racing driver, because you have a bit less track time compared to single-seater. You need to share the car, but I’m still loving it this year because I have great teammates and I think that makes the difference. To be with Malte Jakobsen and Loic Duval makes life a bit easier and also a bit more enjoyable to be with two guys that are enjoying what they are doing. They are really, really good drivers. I think Malte showed it in quality in Imola, doing P4, and Loic, I think he has nothing to prove anymore, but he’s still really quick. I’m loving it. For sure, we would love to finish in better positions. We are working hard. At the moment, it’s a bit difficult, but I think we will have some chances this year to get some good results and I think probably next year will be a better year.”
What are the goals with Peugeot this year in terms of results?
“We have to stay humble, to stay calm, because a lot of teams, they made a lot of improvements on their cars. I’m talking about BMW, Cadillac, Toyota. They used a lot of Jokers. So, their cars found performance, that’s for sure, while we have the same cars as last year. So, it’s going to be a bit difficult in some races. I think in some others, where our car was already quick, we can still fight for some good results. Hopefully, I think the goal of the team would be to get this first victory since the comeback in the World Endurance Championship. I think it’s an important target. Will it be this year? I don’t know. It’s going to be tough for sure. But we have to give our best every time. And the World Endurance Championship races are crazy. There is always something happening. So, if you make no mistakes and if you stay on track, have a good pace, do your best, you can potentially score some really, really good points. We are just doing our best.”
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Then I’d like to ask you if you have any pre-race habits or rituals when you have to jump in the car right now in the WEC. If you do something to relax or to keep the pressure away.
“Yeah, I have some, let’s say, superstition. I’m a bit of a superstitious person, to be fair. I like to, first of all, warm up. I have my warm-up procedure for my body. Then I usually take an espresso. I like to take a small coffee, you know, to…”
Like an Italian!
“Exactly, exactly. Italian coffee is very good! You know, to get the small boost to be ready to jump in the car. And then, yeah, some things like I always put my right shoe first, right glove first, and then I try to put my right foot first in the car. So, yeah, small things like that. I’m just a little bit superstitious, but it’s good. For me, on that level, everybody is good. And I think you can make the difference mentally. Of course, there’s some small differences in the driving, but mentally it’s very important to be, full push mode, full focus, no mistakes, extracting the best out of you, out of the car.”
Where do you see yourself in five years? Not only in sports terms, but also in personal terms.
“In five years, hopefully I can see myself as a Le Mans winner. Probably one of my dreams as well would be, yeah, to be an Indy 500 winner as well. That’s something I’m really looking forward to. I’m not sure this would be possible in five years. Le Mans is more possible. Indy 500 probably later in my career, but it’s for sure a target. And then, yeah, personally just being healthy and earning good money is also important. So, you know, just enjoying life, racing, still racing, and most importantly being healthy. We forget that sometimes. As long as I’m healthy and racing, even if I have no money, I will be happy.”
We were in Imola for the WEC with the GPKingdom team, and there were a lot of people, more than 90,000. WEC is growing a lot, and it’s getting better and better as a category. Do you think that, as Formula 1 is walking down the opposite path, WEC could challenge Formula 1 one day as a competitor?
“If you come and watch the races on the racetrack, for me, the WEC is probably more interesting than Formula 1. There’s more race cars, beautiful race cars. As a passionate, of course, I love F1. But for the general people, when they go and watch a WEC race, and they see the Ferrari, the Peugeot, the Aston Martin, the Toyota, they all have different engines, different engine sounds, different looks. This is very beautiful. Even the GT3s are really beautiful. And it’s also very cheap compared to Formula 1 to buy tickets. So, yeah, it’s more popular. I think on TV, it’s also difficult to attract people when the races are super long. I mean, it’s the DNA of the Endurance Championship to have long races, like the 24 Hours of Le Mans. But yeah, Formula 1, for me, this new regulation… I mean I work for Mercedes in Formula 1, and I’m really happy because they are winning everything. So, you know, it’s very good. But as a true, true fan of Formula 1, it’s not the best regulation, in my opinion. And I can understand the frustration of the people because they want to have, you know, pure Formula 1, pure sound, pure racing. And it’s not true. It’s not fully, fully like that right now. But I think they will improve it. We have to be a bit patient, maybe in Miami this weekend. Maybe it’s going to be better. Let’s see. We have to give a chance to this new regulation. The only thing that I don’t really like about F1 is for sure the price in general. The price is like everything is so expensive and the true fans cannot really attend the races right now. So it’s tough. I understand it’s a business, but at the end of the day, the true passionate people are making this sport big. Let’s see what they can do on that for sure.”
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In Imola, you could see lots of fans that maybe can’t afford to attend a Formula 1 race. It was very good. Two weeks ago I had an interview with Marciello, the WEC driver. He told me that in this modern Formula 1, as a driver, you can see that the art of defending is no longer there. What do you think, from your perspective as a driver, is missing the most in Formula 1 today? Because as a fan, before being a journalist, I can say that seeing these fake overtakes is not as exciting as seeing just last year’s racing or WEC racing in the last minutes of the six hours of Imola. There were a lot of battles in the first minutes too. So I want to ask you what’s missing the most in your opinion.
“I think right now they are missing a bit of, first of all, qualifying, for me. The cars, because of the clipping sometimes, they are missing a bit of high-speed corners difficulty. I drove the cars in the simulator and the high-speed corners are not as tough as it was last year. Sometimes the car is slowing down to keep the battery alive. So you don’t have as much high-speed corner difficulty as before. Then in the races, yeah, I think we all saw that the racing is completely different this year in Formula 1. And it’s not, you have to really understand where is your energy in the car, where is your power level and how you can deploy it and what you can do exactly because you need to be really smart. And I think on that side, it’s a bit closer to Formula E a little bit, even if there are still a lot of differences, but they should maybe make it. And I think that’s what is going to happen in Miami and that’s what the FIA did. I think it’s a good step forward. They need to make less difference in straight line speed and to give the car in front still some possibilities to defend because we saw it right now in the straight lines: you arrive, I don’t know, 40 km/h quicker and, I mean, you cannot defend. You just need to stay in line, and that’s what the drivers are doing. They are not defending anymore. So it’s a bit sad, but it’s going to be better. I’m pretty sure. So for me, yeah, let’s give it a chance. Let’s see in a few races. But it needs to be improved. Otherwise, the fans will for sure not watch Formula 1 as much as before, that’s for sure.”
Photo: Peugeot, Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team, KSP Reportages, GPKingdom/Claudia Conti
