Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Theo Pourchaire claimed his first Formula 2 pole since the 2023 season opener at Bahrain by topping qualifying at Monza yesterday, and was thrilled to be back at the front.
“It’s an amazing feeling to be back on pole,” said the ART Grand Prix driver after qualifying. “Since this morning I was confident in the car. We have a great car. Big thanks to the team. Performance was great, and quali already first push I was in the top three, and the second one I had a great slipstream and also I did a great lap.
“So super happy to be back on pole. It’s just a crazy feeling. And I love this track too, so it’s very special.”
Pourchaire retired from last weekend’s feature race at Zandvoort, making him “happy to bounce back”.
“I’m ready for the races, I want to score big points. But it was a tough one in Zandvoort. I was more or less leading the race, but I did a small mistake, crashed the car, hurt a bit myself. But all good now. To do pole position in the penultimate round, it’s great. But it’s not finished. It’s only the beginning of the weekend. And I want to do two great races.”
The crash that put Pourchaire out of the race at Zandvoort also injured his left hand, but did not hold him back in Monza qualifying.
“It was fine. Thankfully it’s Monza, it’s an easy track physically, there’s not a lot of corners. It’s a bit painful. It was very painful two or three days ago. But I did a lot of treatments and I went to a special clinic.”
“When I broke my radius in Baku in 2021, they helped me a lot, and know as well they are helping me a lot.”
It was a typically chaotic qualifying session, and Pourchaire “had the same approach, run one [and] run two”.
“My team wanted me to be behind my team-mate Victor [Martins], and we wanted to be behind the Premas to have a good slipstream. So we tried our best. We tried to have a great position on track, but what happened after, unfortunately was a big mess, but that can happen.”
Several drivers did not do a second qualifying run after bunched up hoping to benefit from a slipstream and then running out of time. Pactice was somewhat similar, and Formula Scout asked Pourchaire if ART GP could tell if their race pace would be strong based on the running in those sessions.
“Race pace is going to be great, I hope, at least,” he replied. “I think it’s going to be great. If we are fast – I mean, we were fast in free practice, we were fast in quali. I think it will be fine for the races.”
Vesti qualified eighth, meaning he will start third on the reversed grid for today’s sprint race while Pourchaire is back in 10th. “I will try to still grab some points, and let’s see how it goes.”