Théo Pourchaire: “My focus was mostly on understanding everything about the car”

Théo Pourchaire said his experience during first practice for the United States Grand Prix on Friday was the ‘best hour of his life’ so far, with the Frenchman taking over from Valtteri Bottas for Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN at the Circuit of the Americas.

FIA Formula 2 frontrunner Pourchaire was handed the chance to run in the opening session at COTA as part of Alfa Romeo’s mandatory young driver sessions during the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season, and he completed nineteen laps on his way to the eighteenth fastest time.

Pourchaire says he was focusing on getting an understanding on how everything on the C42-Ferrari worked during the session and was not going for outright pace, but he was pleased to be able to help the team learn ahead of the rest of the weekend at COTA.

“It’s been an amazing experience, the best hour of my life and I am so grateful to the team for the trust they’ve put in me,” said Pourchaire.  “Discovering this track was incredible and the car is just something special: I have been through lots of emotions and I’m just so happy right now.

“My main target was to help the team and I was pleased to be able to do so: we had a good session, did quite a few laps and everyone was satisfied, so it’s a good start of the weekend.

“I tried to push a bit at the end, but my focus was mostly on understanding everything about the car, the steering wheel and so on.

“I would like to thank Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN for this opportunity: it’s been a very intense experience, I enjoyed every minute of it and tried to learn as much as I could from the car and the team around me.”