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Sébastien Philippe, ART Team Principal, has shed light on some of the reasons why Théo Pourchaire struggled to fight Felipe Drugovich for the F2 title in 2022.
Although it was his second full season in F2, Théo Pourchaire was just 18 years old at the beginning of the campaign.
Regardless of age or experience, the young French driver was able to mount a title challenge to eventual champion Felipe Drugovich over the opening 10 rounds of the F2 season, which led up to the summer break.
At that point, he sat just 21 points behind Drugovich, who had seen his imperious form fall away during a busy July, which featured four rounds in five weeks. At that point, the momentum clearly sat with Pourchaire and ART.
However, over the summer-ending triple-header, mistakes and poor form helped Drugovich – back to his best by then – to clinch the title with a round to spare.
When all was said and done, Pourchaire, a member of the Sauber driver academy, finished a distant 101 points behind his Brazilian counterpart.
The 2022 runner-up’s team boss at ART Grand Prix, Sébastien Philippe, revealed some of the factors he believes contributed to the disappointing end to the campaign during a roundtable with selected media, including FormulaNerds.
Generally, Philippe felt that last season the rest of the field – including ART – were “all lacking a bit of consistency,” and that “only MP [Motorsport] with [Felipe] Drugovich were there every time.”
A make-0r-break year for Pourchaire?
Heading into his third full season in F2, a lot of eyes will be on Pourchaire, and many feel it is a make-or-break season for him. FormulaNerds asked Philippe what he feels his lead driver needs to do to better position himself in a title fight over the coming year.
“There is a lot of things to say, you know,” he replied.
“Last year, we didn’t deliver what we should have done – both on the team’s side, on the driver’s side.”
He went on to add: “It’s not one thing that went wrong, its many, many little things.
“Also, Théo [Pourchaire], as we all know, like many young drivers now step up the categories very, very quickly, and we should never forget that year [he] was just 18 years old.
“And it was the really first time that he was repeating a category, and, in a way, in the approach, that it was completely new for him.”
Philippe again referenced the inconsistency he feels plagued the team over the course of the season.
“I think we haven’t been lucky as a team; we haven’t been good every time; Theo did some mistakes.
“All in all, I think the performance was there, but not every time and we have never been capable to repeat two, three, four races in a row with good speed that could have bring us more confidence in the team.”
MP’s unwavering consistency
Further compounding mistakes and inconsistency is the fact that MP Motorsport were relentless in their pace and execution across the entire season.
“At the end of the day, you have to accept that Drugovich and MP did a fantastic job,” Philippe added.
“They had been there all year and at some point, during the summer, we thought we would be able to recover this.
“Then after coming back from the summer break, we did one mistake, two mistake.
“And after, you know how it is – it’s like soccer, when start to take two, three, four goals at the same time – you’re not delivering the same way.”
Poor luck on top of a lack of experience
A number of things also did not go ART’s way, with Pourchaire retiring from three of the final seven races.
“I will not say we gave up, but kind of, you know,” the ART boss admitted.
“We have been very, very unlucky with Théo,” Philippe highlighted, before referencing the bird in Pourchaire’s radiator, which ended his season finale in Abu Dhabi – a prime example of the misfortune faced.
“But I think this year, Theo is more mature. We have been learning a lot technically with him last year and we have to deliver this year, and never forget that Theo is still 19, you know.
“So even if he’s doing a third year, he has been jumping from F4 to F3 in seven months’ time to a period where it was COVID, with less testing.
“And probably the mistake was that he went up quickly, you know, with not enough experience, I think, at that time.”
The third time’s a charm
It had been looking like 2022 would be Pourchaire’s final year in F2. He confirmed as much late in the season but reversed that decision to stay put with ART.
Philippe confirmed that in the end it was felt that the young driver needed more time before moving on to a full-time seat in F1.
As a member of the Sauber programme, Pourchaire will act as Alfa Romeo reserve driver again in 2023.
He’s started the F2 season strongly, finishing P1 in both the morning and afternoon sessions during the first day of pre-season testing in Bahrain.
“It took us a long time to make a decision on what was the best for him for 2023, and I think at the end of the day and what his F1 team decided, is that he needed probably a bit more experience, a bit more maturity, and also, it’s better for him to repeat something than to stay one year without racing.”
“I really think that we didn’t see yet the proper Theo. Because he still is only 19, he has done three real years of motorsport, three or four years, and I think he still has a lot of things to learn.”
Philippe ended by reinforcing his point that more experience will hold Pourchaire in better stead, whilst still early in his career: “I think this is a good process for him to repeat this and do a third year.”
Feature Image Credit: @TPourchaire on Twitter