Theo Pourchaire has been given a five-place grid penalty for Sunday’s Formula 2 feature race in Jeddah for crashing into Oliver Bearman in the sprint event.
The collision happened at turn one early in the race, which Pourchaire started from seventh. He was trying to pass his ART team mate Victor Martins for sixth, but misjudged his braking point and crashed into the side of Bearman’s Prema machine at the apex of the corner.The stewards deemed Pourchaire “wholly responsible for the collision” which put him and Bearman out of the race. Pourchaire immediately went over to Bearman to apologise, but his rivals were unimpressed by his driving.
“Oh man, the guy is crazy. He was doing the same in Bahrain,” Bearman instantly said over team radio. Jack Doohan, who was watching from behind, called Pourchaire “a nutcase”.
Pourchaire later apologised for the collision on social media. “I’m sorry,” he wrote. “Mistakes happen, apologies to Ollie, Prema and my team ART GP.”
Martins, the reigning Formula 3 champion who was contesting his third race at this level, said his team mate should have exercised more restraint.
“I was going quite fast, I braked quite late, and then I stayed on the line and I saw Theo going really, really fast into Bearman,” Martins recalled.
“So I was like ‘that was a mistake’, because I was already going really, really fast and I was catching the others on the braking, and he came way too fast.
“I think he needs to stay a bit more calm, because we have a good pace and we can come back late in the race.”
Pourchaire, who started the season as the title favourite and arrived in Jeddah leading the championship, will now start the feature race in eighth. Doohan has been promoted to third behind Martins and Bearman on the front row.
Jehan Daruvala, Ayumu Iwasa, Frederik Vesti and Kush Maini all move up as a result of Pourchaire’s penalty. The ART driver will line up on the eighth row and has also had two penalty points added to his licence.
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Sviat
19th March 2023, 9:45
Are there still people who believe that Theo is good for F1? It’s his third season in F2, and he crashes out in the second race weekend. He doesn’t improve.
The way Theo crashed into Bearman says that the guy cannot calculate. He believes that after a lucky lunge he can try to do the same thing in a different race situation. No race thinking, no analysis of everyone’s position. No talent.
MichaelN
19th March 2023, 11:05
Very lenient penalty, considering both the silliness and the consequences for the driver he bumped into.
The FIA believes F2 is the second highest ranked single-seater series in the world. While a dubious claim to begin with, this kind of stewarding doesn’t reflect that at all.