ADAC F4 title success for the Sauber Junior Team programme

The Sauber Junior Team programme has secured its maiden overall championship title after Théo Pourchaire was crowned 2019 ADAC F4 Champion at Sachsenring today.

The Frenchman, the long-time points leader, came into the final round of the season with a slender advantage. But the 16-year-old kept his cool across all three races in Germany to seal the title in style.

A brace of P2 finishes in the first and third races were complemented by P1 – his fourth success of the season – during Saturday’s second race.

Arthur Leclerc capped his impressive season by securing P3 in the final championship standings. The Monegasque driver finished on the podium in the third race, adding valuable points to his P6 and P5 classifications in the opening two on-track encounters.

Roman Stanek, winner of the 2019 ADAC F4 Rookie Championship two weeks earlier at Hockenheim, scored points in all three races at Sachsenring to take P4 in the drivers’ championship, while team-mate Alessandro Ghiretti finished P8 and P7 in the opening two races. The young Frenchman was robbed of a worthy podium finish in the final race after his car was adjudged to have been underweight.

The quartet of Sauber Junior Team development drivers have been guided by Sauber Motorsport – the organisation that runs the Alfa Romeo Racing entry in F1 – and Charouz Racing System, which has collaborated with US Racing in the F4 category during 2019.

Their results during the season also helped to steer the ‘US Racing-CHRS’ team to the 2019 ADAC F4 Teams’ Championship title – ensuring a clean-sweep of honours this season.

Antonin Charouz, Charouz Racing System owner, said: “This weekend has crowned a truly memorable season for our F4 development drivers where they’ve really shown their driving skills and determination to make a name for themselves. Winning all three titles is a dream for everyone that’s been involved this season and shows the value that the Sauber Junior Team programme delivers at this level of motorsport.”

Théo Pourchaire said: “It was a super weekend with a double pole and three times on the podium too. It’s super because myself and the US Racing-CHRS team are both champions – unbelievable. I learned a lot this year because the championship level was really high. All of my team-mates and Dennis [Hauger] pushed me hard and brought the best out of me.”

Arthur Leclerc said: “It was difficult in this weekend’s races because in qualifying I think we didn’t maximise the pace we had. The pace was pretty good compared to the others but in race one and two I didn’t have any luck as I was pushed off twice and then in the final race I stalled. That didn’t help. But the speed was there in that race and to come back from last to third was a really good feeling for me.”

Roman Staněk said: “It was quite a tough weekend, but we finished in the points every race. I would say it’s not the best I could do, but sometimes you have weekends like this. I take the positives from this year, like winning the Rookie Championship in my first season of formula racing, and try to use it for the next season to win again. I think my best is yet to come.”

Alessandro Ghiretti said: “I had good speed this weekend, so to leave with this set of results is very disappointing. I was in the podium battle in Race 1 before a throttle problem dropped me back down the field, and my fightback wasn’t good for my tyres. That limited what was possible in Race 2, while Race 3 was positive before the penalty. I should have come away with more from Sachsenring, but the issues were largely out of my control.”