The penultimate round of the Formula 3 World Championship took place this weekend in Italy, at Monza. Always a very spectacular event, the driver from Grasse, Théo Pourchaire, made a significant mark on it.
“I am aiming for third place (in the championship). I know it’s achievable being just 4.5 points away, it’s really very close,” confided Théo Pourchaire at the start of the penultimate weekend of the season. To reach his goal, the Frenchman had his work cut out for him!
And it started off very well for the Gras native, who achieved the first pole position of his career in the category! Leading in his first run, he set the fourth fastest time without benefiting from a strong slipstream. A disadvantage on this circuit nicknamed the temple of speed. At the end of the session, his ART Grand Prix team decided to send him out on the track a little earlier to avoid the classic traffic jams in the “parabolica.” A paying choice since Théo managed to stitch together all the sectors to set, by far, the best time (-0.45) while his competitors continuously hampered each other at the end of the session.
Unfortunately, this happiness was short-lived since Théo Pourchaire, along with seven other drivers, was penalized five grid places for blocking other cars during their flying lap.
Pourchaire puts on a show
The next day during race 1, the driver of car No. 7 had the perfect start! By the end of the first lap, the podium was already within his grasp, then he moved into second place thanks to a textbook overtake of the Italian Matteo Nannini at the end of the starting straight. As collisions multiplied in the pack, Pourchaire seemed very comfortable and took the opportunity to attack the race leader, an old acquaintance named Liam Lawson. A very important battle since Lawson is a direct competitor in the championship.
Shortly after mid-race, an incident caused the safety car to be deployed. Bad news for Théo, who was leading the race and now found himself under threat from other drivers. In the slipstream game, it was the Dane Frédérik Vesti who took the advantage. The Prema driver (who secured the constructors’ championship on this occasion) denied our Frenchman a victory that was within his grasp.
On Sunday, it was the same story during race 2. Théo Pourchaire, starting from 9th, got a good start but made a mistake at the chicane. A mistake that dropped him to 18th place in the Grand Prix. Nonetheless, the young man who just celebrated his 17th birthday did not lose heart. He began an impressive comeback, marked by thirteen overtakes, a record for the race. At the finish, it was another very fine second place that allowed him to score 30 points over the entire Italian round.
This result offered him third place provisionally in the championship.
It was, undoubtedly, the best weekend of his young career. Enough to boost his confidence before the last GP of the season at Mugello starting Friday!
