From third-year Formula 2 champion to McLaren IndyCar reject, Théo Pourchaire has been at the center of plenty of single-seater discourse in the past two years, but now he is taking his talents to the World Endurance Championship. He opened up on his single-seater career, how it ended, and how he returned to the path of professional motorsport. 

By Calla Kra-Caskey

Some time on 8 November, Théo Pourchaire will climb through the window of the #94 Peugeot 9X8 to drive his first stint in a Le Mans Hypercar. 

Maybe, once several of those stints are through, there will be a miracle debut podium. Or potentially Pourchaire and his teammates will end up a lap or two down after brushing an LMGT3 car around the Bahrain International Circuit and taking a drive-through penalty.

There are a million ways for a race to play out in a discipline with races that last eight hours instead of one. All possibilities will be new for Pourchaire, who has stepped up from his development role upon being confirmed as an official race driver for Peugeot for the 2026 WEC season.

It’s an opportunity for both stability and redemption for the 2023 F2 champion, who spent years knocking on F1’s door before his single-seater career fell apart through little fault of his own.

“The hardest part was having to share the car,” Pourchaire said of his transition to endurance racing. “Coming from single-seaters, we are really used to having our own car, our own set-up, our own engineer and our own mechanics. In single-seaters, it’s true that even when we are in a professional team, in F3 or in F2, our teammates are teammates on paper. We still want to be in front of them because they’re the ones in the same team as us, with the same car, and it’s the most representative to be beating them.

“In endurance, it’s completely different. It’s much more of a team sport, and it really requires a different mentality. I really like it. I find that it’s positive. I never had problems adapting, helping my teammates. Endurance really suits me.”

Of course, endurance racing wasn’t always Pourchaire’s goal, and it hasn’t been an easy path to get there.

For a long time, he was on the path to F1, having joined the Sauber Academy in 2019. Under their guidance, he climbed the F1 support ladder and spent multiple seasons as a reserve driver, completing three free practice one sessions for the team across 2022 and 2023. 

“It’s quite bizarre because it’s true that Sauber believed in me enormously,” Pourchaire said. “They invested a lot in my career. I could drive in F1 in FP1 sessions thanks to them. I did a lot of simulator work thanks to them. I had media exposure also thanks to them. So I’m very grateful towards them, but they didn’t make that last step that was the most important.” 

Pourchaire has always been a notable talent – so much so that the Sauber Academy nearly missed out on him.

“At the start of my career in single-seaters, I remember having a meeting with Red Bull, with Helmut Marko. I went to Austria with my manager. At the time, I was very young. I was 14,” he said. “It was quite stressful, but Red Bull were quite interested at one moment. I remember sending my race reports from French F4 to Helmut Marko.

“After that, we went in different ways because when I moved up to ADAC F4, I was with US Racing, Gerhard Ungar and Ralf Schumacher’s team, which had signed a partnership with the Sauber Junior Team. And that’s how the link was made with Sauber, which later became the Sauber Academy, and I stayed with them afterwards.” 

Pourchaire began his single-seater career in 2018 in French F4’s Juniors category, which was open to drivers who were 14 rather than 15. He won the category and finished third in the overall classification. The next year, he took the ADAC F4 championship in the final race. 

At 16, Pourchaire stepped up to F3 with ART Grand Prix and found further success. He was runner-up for the title, surrounded by the Premas of champion Oscar Piastri, third-placed Logan Sargeant, and fourth-placed Frederik Vesti. 

“I took this path in motorsport because of budget,” Pourchaire said. “My family made a lot of efforts, but I couldn’t allow myself to do three years in F4, three years in F3. I had to go quickly.

“Sometimes, there was a bit of pressure, and maybe it was a bit rushed. But we can’t turn back. I don’t regret anything. 

“Having done three years in F2, three good seasons in F2 in the end, I’m proud of it. I made some mistakes in the first year and likewise quite a few mistakes of inexperience in the second, but I was runner-up, and then I won in the third year.” 

Being a third-year F2 champion is a title that comes with a bit of infamy. Of eight full seasons of the F2 era, three third-year drivers have won titles: Pourchaire in 2023, Felipe Drugovich in 2022 and Nyck de Vries in 2019. Pourchaire and Drugovich are the only two F2 champions to have never received a full-time F1 seat. De Vries was unceremoniously dumped by Scuderia AlphaTauri mid-2023 after just 10 race weekends. 

Despite finishing fifth as a rookie and second as a sophomore, impressive results in their own right; despite winning multiple races in his first year and setting new records for being F2’s youngest polesitter and winner; despite convincingly beating his ART teammate each season – Pourchaire wasn’t able to shake that reputation. 

“The fact that I’d done three seasons of F2 didn’t serve me well when it came to my image, I don’t think, because people quickly forgot my age. We can say that three years is a lot, but before that, I had only done two seasons in F4 [and one season in F3],” he said on reflection. 

“I used to dream about F1 a lot, especially during my first year in F2. Sometimes we can forget the most important aspects: to stay calm, to work hard,” he added. “I let myself go a bit, and maybe that was down to inexperience. I was only 17 going on 18 when I started in F2. We’re not the same at that age compared to today, at 22 years old.”

After Pourchaire’s rookie F2 season – 2021, won by Oscar Piastri – Sauber chose to bring Alpine junior Zhou Guanyu onto their F1 squad. Zhou had finished third as a third-year F2 driver, two positions and 43 points ahead of Pourchaire. Sauber’s pairing of Zhou and Valtteri Bottas lasted through the end of 2024, when they were replaced by Nico Hülkenberg and 2024 F2 champion Gabriel Bortoleto.

At the end of that year, Pourchaire departed the Sauber Academy along with all the other members at the time. Sauber, which will become Audi in 2026, now supports only Emma Felbermayr in F1 Academy.

“I was close to F1. What was missing? I still don’t have the answer,” Pourchaire admitted.

“I see a lot of drivers that got their opportunity and I tell myself that it could be possible. In any case, I had the ability and I could have at least tried if I’d had the chance. Maybe I wouldn’t have been good enough, but that’s how things go. Now we see drivers getting five races only and having one opportunity, but five races for me is massive. Sometimes when I see this, I tell myself that maybe if I had five races, I could have showed something and earned my place in that environment, but that’s how it is.” 

And showed something he has. Although he never got an F1 chance, Pourchaire spent a tumultuous 2024 split between several professional series. He started the year in Super Formula at Toyota-powered Team Impul before filling in for an injured David Malukas on McLaren’s IndyCar team. After two strong showings as a substitute, he earned a year-long contract, but just over a month later, he was suddenly dropped in favor of Nolan Siegel. 

In November 2024, he linked up with Peugeot for the Hypercar rookie test. Even then, his future wasn’t confirmed.

“Until mid-December of last year, I had nothing. I hadn’t signed any contract,” he said. “I had no other opportunities than the one from Peugeot. At first, we got in contact. I did the rookie test in Bahrain, and it went really well. It was very positive for them, for me, and we wanted to work together. Then Stellantis wanted me to do an LMP2 program in the European Le Mans Series so that I could be ready to step up to the Peugeot hypercar at any moment.

“Unfortunately, in terms of budget, it wasn’t possible to find something. So [Peugeot] really made an effort. They helped me and it’s clearly thanks to them that I’m driving this year. It’s 100 per cent thanks to them. For me, I’m tremendously grateful. It’s a huge opportunity to be with them.”

This year, the platinum-rated Pourchaire competed in the European Le Mans Series’ LMP2 class for Algarve Pro Racing alongside Lorenzo Fluxá and Matthias Kaiser, finishing seventh in class with a best result of third. He also drove for the team at his first 24 Hours of Le Mans, in which the team finished eighth in class. 

Next year, he’ll be closer to the front, aiming to improve upon Peugeot’s results, with their best-placed drivers currently 11th in the drivers’ standings. Loïc Duval and Malthe Jakobsen, whom Pourchaire will join this weekend, are 22nd.

“I’m proud of my career,” he said. “With this fresh start, I feel as though I’m at the start of my second career. It’s a little strange saying it like this, but I experienced the first phase as a young driver. I learned a lot in junior racing categories, I won races and championships and earned some very good results, and now I’m onto something different with more of the label of a professional driver. 

“In any case, I want to become a professional, representing car brands, competing in world championships, winning the greatest races in the world. It’s really what I want to do. I’m at the beginning of a new era for me, and I’m proud of what I’ve achieved.” 

As for F1? For Pourchaire, it’s never say never. 

“I’m ready for everything,” he said. “So many things have happened in my career these last two years. We never know – I could be called to do something else at a moment’s notice. But I’m very happy with Peugeot. I think it’s the perfect opportunity for me to show myself, to have the pressure of a constructor and to put in good results.”

Interview by Perceval Wolff-Taffus

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency