{"id":17694,"date":"2023-12-24T16:18:41","date_gmt":"2023-12-24T21:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=17694"},"modified":"2023-12-24T16:18:41","modified_gmt":"2023-12-24T21:18:41","slug":"pourchaire-craves-f1-chance-believes-hes-on-oscar-piastris-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2023\/12\/24\/pourchaire-craves-f1-chance-believes-hes-on-oscar-piastris-level\/","title":{"rendered":"Pourchaire craves F1 chance, believes he&#8217;s on Oscar Piastri&#8217;s level"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Theo Pourchaire believes he is capable of competing in F1 after a bitter-sweet farewell campaign in Formula 2.<\/h3>\n<p>Formula 1&#8217;s driver market was unusually quiet this year, in part thanks to the lack of opportunities given to Formula 2 drivers. Theo Pourchaire and Frederik Vesti, who battled for the Championship, were largely absent from links to F1.<\/p>\n<p>Aside from occasional speculation, there were few indications that Pourchaire was under consideration. This was despite ultimately claiming the title &#8211; and his status as a Sauber academy driver.<\/p>\n<p>The Swiss team opted to retain Zhou Guanyu for another season, whose contract will expire at the end of 2024 &#8211; and so will that of Valtteri Bottas.<\/p>\n<p>Pourchaire will spend next year competing in Japanese SuperFormula, which provides a potential opportunity. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2023\/09\/24\/lawson-receives-red-bull-guarantee-for-2025\/\" target=\"_self\">Liam Lawson&#8217;s results<\/a> in the category were a contributing factor to his eventual debut with AlphaTauri this year.<\/p>\n<p>Although it remains unclear if the Frenchman&#8217;s F1 hopes are over, he is fully confident in his abilities.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"I_-FQT05QO9mpksLAp26IA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1342624967\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'I_-FQT05QO9mpksLAp26IA',sig:'58nrSOTFu9UlMTOW5NybFAowTRLDbpkXMfp1C79c3Ug=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1342624967',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>In a discussion with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/shorts\/ugNx7dzxFOw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pitstop podcast,<\/a> the 20-year-old was asked if he could match Oscar Piastri in the same machinery:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>&#8220;He&#8217;s an exceptional racing driver.\u00a0 <\/em><em>It&#8217;s tough to say, but I believe I am on his level.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;So if I have my chance to drive F1 and show my potential &#8211; I am a vice F3 Champion, only three points behind him.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Youngest race winner, same in F2 &#8211; now Champion in F2. I just need an opportunity to get into Formula 1.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Considering Piastri&#8217;s highly impressive debut season, it is natural that Pourchire sees himself as F1-calibre. After all, he spent several years battling the Australian driver in Formula 3 and Formula 2.<\/p>\n<p>Timing is everything in Formula 1, and things didn&#8217;t quite fall into place for the F2 Champion this season. Despite claiming the crown in Abu Dhabi, Sauber&#8217;s driver lineup remains unchanged.<\/p>\n<p>As Audi&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2023\/12\/23\/f1-news-sauber-expected-to-reveal-shock-livery-in-2024\/\" target=\"_self\">influence over the team grows,<\/a> it remains unclear what they envision for their driver pairing. What is perfectly understandable, however, is the potential for unpredictability in the 2024 driver market.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst Oscar Piastri enjoys a multi-year contract with McLaren, the likes of Pourchaire must battle to prove themselves worthy of an F1 contract.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Theo Pourchaire believes he is capable of competing in F1 after a bitter-sweet farewell campaign in Formula 2. Formula 1&#8217;s driver market was unusually quiet this year, in part thanks to the lack of opportunities given to Formula 2 drivers. Theo Pourchaire and Frederik Vesti, who battled for the Championship, were largely absent from links [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":14011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2186,68,23,1687],"class_list":["post-17694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-2023-formula-1-season","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-theo-pourchaire"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}