Pourchaire closing in on FP1 opportunity

Alfa Romeo team principal Frederic Vasseur confirmed he’s looking to find a “solution” which will enable Theo Pourchaire to run in FP1 for the team this season.

The sport’s regulations highlight two mandatory free practice sessions which must be allocated to a young or reserve driver during the season, but the talented teenager is yet to test the car in practice this year.

Pourchaire, a member of the Sauber Academy, is hotly tipped for a Formula 1 seat in the coming seasons, having stepped up to F2 last year aged 17, finishing fifth on his first year in the category.

He currently sits third in this season’s standings, but with the way the schedule has played out between F1 and F2 this year, the Alfa Romeo team boss said the opportunity has not quite been there to get Pourchaire in the car thus far – but that will come in time.

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“We will find an FP1 [session] because it’s per regulation that you have to give an FP1 to the rookie,” Vasseur said, as per Formula1.com.

Luck is not with me this year…

Anyway I still come back home with a P2 in the sprint race !

Now let’s rest a bit for a week at home pic.twitter.com/pwltYQDiXf

— Théo Pourchaire (@TPourchaire) July 10, 2022

“But when we discuss about it, if you consider when you have the F2 races, we have some events with the sprint races, we will have some events with tyre testing.

“And you can’t imagine [giving] the rookie session to Singapore, even Suzuka will be difficult, even if I think that Max [Verstappen] did it a couple of years ago. You