Photo: Mercedes-AMG F1
The Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 team has announced two new junior drivers, and the signing of Theo Pourchaire.
F1 work will be dovetailed by Pourchaire with racing for Peugeot in the World Endurance Championship’s top Hypercar class.
Since winning the 2023 Formula 2 title aged 20 and as a protege of Sauber, Pourchaire has raced at single-seaters’ top level but has been unable to do so full-time in any of those paddocks. He started off by graduating to Super Formula in early 2024, but gave up his seat at Team Impul after just one race to pursue IndyCar opportunities with McLaren.
Pourchaire had been called up for two races there as a stand-in for an injured driver. Having impressed the team, Pourchaire was offered a full-time seat (excluding the Indianapolis 500) and he dropped his SF seat to accept it. But the arrangement only lasted 40 days, as McLaren replaced him with paying fellow rookie Nolan Siegel who signed on a multi-year deal.
Having relocated to the USA, Pourchaire ended up only doing six IndyCar races with McLaren. Through 2024 he was also reserve driver for the Alfa Romeo Racing F1 team operated by Sauber. Despite ending his Swiss residency, which had provided proximity to Sauber’s headquarters, Pourchaire was able to continue his duties at several races (but with no free practice outings) until the end of 2024 when he left to join Peugeot as its test and development driver.
His 2025 contract also meant serving as Peugeot’s reserve driver when required (for example if the regular reserve driver had been called up to race), leading to him making his WEC debut in the season-ending Eight Hours of Bahrain. He finished 10th, and earned a full-time race seat for 2026. Pourchaire has also contested two Formula E practice sessions.
Frederik Vesti, the driver that Pourchaire beat to the F2 crown, has been promoted by Mercedes from the reverse driver role to being the F1 team’s ‘third driver’ this year, while junior team graduate Doriane Pin and new signings Joshua Duerksen and Pourchaire will share the simulator (in Britain) and trackside responsibilities of development drivers.
Mercedes has also announced that its junior Kenzo Craigie will race in E4 and Italian Formula 4 this year, after recently coming third in UAE4 as a single-seater rookie, while former rival James Anagnostiadis remains in senior and shifter karting.
The four drivers departing the junior team’s ranks were revealed in January, and after some overalls-fuelled speculation it has been confirmed that 11-year-old karters Niccolo Perico and Devin Titz join for 2026.
Perico currently leads the WSK Super Master Series in the OK-N Junior class after winning the first three rounds, and in mini karting last year the Italian won the Champions of the Future Academy Program, WSK Final Cup and WSK SMS titles.
Titz, from Germany, is still in mini karting. He sits sixth in WSK SMS, and was fourth in the 2024 German championship.