DECEMBER 30, 2024

Sauber drops Pourchaire from Academy

Theo Pourchaire and two other drivers have been dropped by Sauber’s young drivers’ program, as the structure of the Swiss team will soon be completely under Audi’s control.

The German manufacturer has plans to start its own Academy from scratch. During the first week of January, Audi will formally complete the acquisition of the shares still owned by an investment fund fully owned by Swedish billionaire Finn Rausing, who will also vacate his position in the Sauber Group Board of Directors, leaving the car manufacturer and its new partner, the Qatar Investment Authority, in complete control of the Swiss company.

For quite a while, and especially since Audi made changes to its structure, it has been looking like the German manufacturer wants to erase all traces of the Sauber identity from will officially become the Audi F1 team from the start of 2026, in a process that has quite a few similarities with what Red Bull did with the Minardi heritage when Dietrich Mateschitz purchased the small and popular Italian team and renamed it Scuderia Toro Rosso, 20 years ago.

Team Representative Alessandro Aluni Bravi will leave the team at the end of the year, historic Sport Director Beat Zehnder will become the team’s Director of Signature Programs and Operations in 2025, still attending the Grand Prix to assure a smooth transition to the new structure but will be Hinwill-based after that, and other long-standing members of the team will either leave or move to background roles, opening the doors for Audi appointed personnel.

Now it is also clear the drivers’ academy will be completely rebuild, as Theo Pourchaire, Formula 2 front runner Zane Malone and Formula 1 Academy driver Carrie Shreiner all leaving the Swiss structure with immediate effect.

Pourchaire was Sauber’s biggest promise for the last few years, but after securing the Formula 2 title in 2023, the Frenchman had no room in the team’s race team, as both Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu were already under contract. The team’s management first choice was to place him in Super Formula for 2024 and he duly took part in the first race of the season, but a conflict between his own management and Sauber’s leadership led to his abrupt departure from the Japanese series and a move to IndyCar.

There too his adventure with McLaren was short lived and now the best he has secured is a reserve driver role with Peugeot in the French company’s WEC program.

Maloney, for his side, quickly realized he wasn’t going to be part of Audi’s Formula 1 project and dropped out of the Formula 2 series before the last round, as he had already signed a contract to race for Lola in Formula E and headed to São Paulo for the first event of the 2024/2025 season. Finally, Shreiner has yet to find a racing program for next year but keeps a tiny link with Sauber as Brand Ambassador for the company for next year.