Mathéo Tuscher

Mathéo Tuscher (born 12 December 1996 in Noville) is a Swiss former professional racing driver. He won the 2011 Formula Pilota China title and finished second in the final season of the FIA Formula Two Championship. After racing in the GP3 Series for two seasons, Tuscher drove in the LMP1 category of the FIA World Endurance Championship with Rebellion Racing.

Career

Karting Tuscher began karting in 2004 and raced primarily in his native Switzerland for the majority of his career, winning the Swiss KF3 championship in 2008. He won the Swiss junior title in 2009.

Formula Pilota China In 2011, at just fourteen years old, Tuscher graduated to single–seaters, racing in the newly launched Formula Pilota China series in Asia for Jenzer Welch Asia Racing under a Czech racing license. He dominated from the beginning of the season, winning eight races at all six venues and the championship title.

FIA Formula Two Championship In 2012 Tuscher stepped up into the FIA Formula Two Championship. He became the youngest ever driver in the revived category, competing at the age of fifteen. On his series début at Silverstone, Tuscher qualified on pole position. He finished sixth and fifth in the weekend's races. Tuscher scored his first podium of the series in the following round in the Algarve, finishing second in both races and moving into second in the standings. Further podiums at the Nürburgring, Spa-Francorchamps, and Brands Hatch followed, before Tuscher claimed his first series win from pole in Le Castellet. He then finished race 2 in second place. Tuscher retired from race 1 at the Hungaroring after being crashed into by Mihai Marinescu, but bounced back to finish second in race 2. At race 1 of the Monza season finale, Tuscher fell to third after starting from pole; he subsequently battled past Kevin Mirocha to win. Tuscher's title hopes ended with a bad start in race 2 that dropped him to ninth, though he recovered by fifth before the race ended. In recognition of his runner-up championship finish, Tuscher was named Autosport Rookie of the Year.

Formula Renault 3.5 Series During 2013, Tuscher only made a single racing appearance, driving for Zeta Corse in the Aragón round of the Formula Renault 3.5 Series. He finished 22nd and last in race 1 before retiring on the final lap of race 2.

GP3 Series

2014 In 2014, Tuscher graduated to GP3 with Jenzer Motorsport. Having held off the likes of Nick Yelloly and Patric Niederhauser to finish eighth in the season-opening Barcelona feature race, he started the sprint race from reversed-grid pole. Though Dean Stoneman passed him on lap 2, Tuscher went on to finish second. Tuscher then climbed from 14th to sixth in the Red Bull Ring feature race. Having started the sprint race from third, Tuscher made contact with Luís Sá Silva on lap 2 while battling for the lead and retired. Tuscher scored a lone point at Silverstone by finishing eighth in the sprint race. Following this, Tuscher went three rounds without finishing inside the top ten; he struggled with tyre wear in Hockenheim and was off the pace in Hungary. During the Spa feature race, Tuscher benefited from starting on dry tyres on a damp track, which allowed him to carve his way to the lead. On lap 8 however, Tuscher spun out into retirement at Eau Rouge. Tuscher returned to the points with an eighth place in the Monza feature race. He fell back from reversed-grid pole during the sprint race, before colliding with Patrick Kujala. In the last four races of the campaign, Tuscher retired twice, including the Yas Marina feature race where he was spun out by Kujala. Overall, Tuscher finished his maiden GP3 season (during which he had been the series's youngest competitor) 12th in the standings.

2015 Tuscher returned to GP3 in 2015, once again driving with Jenzer. Tuscher set a personal record by qualifying fifth at the Barcelona season opener, but fell back to 14th in the feature race. He failed to score points in Spielberg, finishing 12th on Saturday and being excluded from sixth place on Sunday due to a non-conformity of the undertray height dimensions. In Silverstone, Tuscher scored his maiden point of the campaign during the feature race by recovering from 20th to tenth. Tuscher repeated this feature race result in Hungary. On Saturday at Spa, Tuscher retired in bizarre circumstances: he lost the car on throttle during a VSC restart and speared into Sandy Stuvik. He received a five-place grid drop for Sunday's sprint, where he charged from the back of the field to an impressive fourth. Tuscher scored points in both Monza races, finishing sixth in both races despite making contact with Alex Fontana in a battle for the lead on Sunday. At Sochi, Tuscher qualified second, but stalled on the grid due to a broken driveshaft. Tuscher failed to score in the final five races - suffering retirements in the sprint races at Sochi and Bahrain. He finished 13th in the championship.

FIA World Endurance Championship

2015 For his first ever endurance race, Tuscher joined Rebellion Racing in the top class of the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship. He, alongside teammates Dominik Kraihamer and Alexandre Imperatori, retired from the 6 Hours of Shanghai late on due to a fire. Despite this, Tuscher's debut was later described as "impressive" by Dailysportscar. His start at Shanghai also made him the youngest driver to drive an LMP1 car in the WEC. At Bahrain, Tuscher and his teammates won the class for privately entered LMP1 cars after the other two competitors fell behind with technical troubles.

2016 Tuscher remained at Rebellion Racing to contest the entire 2016 WEC season. The No. 13 finished fourth overall at the first round in Silverstone, before being promoted to the podium after the No. 7 Audi was disqualified. Another third place overall followed at Spa-Francorchamps, where Tuscher and his teammates profited from reliability troubles of their competitors. This briefly promoted the No. 13 crew of Tuscher, Imperatori, and Kraihamer into second in the championship. At the 24 Hours of Le Mans however, this run of form came to an end as Tuscher retired during the night with a fuel injector failure. The No. 13 finished seventh at the Nürburgring, first of the privateer entrants. As the sister car exited the championship following that round, Tuscher and his teammates only had to battle the ByKolles Racing Team for privateer honours. They subsequently won the subclass by finishing fifth overall in Mexico, seventh at Austin, and sixth at Fuji. The No. 13 suffered problems at Shanghai and finished behind the ByKolles car for the first time that season, but took another subclass win with seventh overall at Bahrain. The trio of Tuscher, Imperatori, and Kraihamer finished seventh in the overall drivers' championship.

After racing Despite wanting to continue driving for Rebellion in the LMP2 class of the WEC in 2017, Tuscher and the team split in February 2017.

Racing record

Career summary SeasonSeriesTeamRacesWinsPolesF/LapsPodiumsPointsPosition 2011 Formula Pilota China Jenzer Welch Asia Racing 12 8 10 8 9 189 1st 2012 FIA Formula Two Championship Motorsport Vision 16 2 4 1 9 210 2nd 2013 Formula Renault 3.5 Series Zeta Corse 2 0 0 0 0 0 30th 2014 GP3 Series Jenzer Motorsport 18 0 0 0 1 29 12th 2015 GP3 Series Jenzer Motorsport 18 0 0 0 0 22 13th FIA World Endurance Championship Rebellion Racing 2 0 0 0 0 0.5 32nd 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship Rebellion Racing 9 0 0 0 2 66.5 7th 24 Hours of Le Mans 1 0 0 0 0 N/A DNFSource: Complete Formula Pilota China results (key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap) Year Entrant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Pos Points 2011 Jenzer Welch Asia Racing GUA1 GUA2 SHI1 SHI2 SHI1 SHI2 ORD1 ORD2 SHT1 SHT2 SEP1 SEP2 1st 189

Complete FIA Formula Two Championship results (key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap) Year 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Pos Points Ref 2012 SIL1 SIL2 ALG1 ALG2 NÜR1 NÜR2 SPA1 SPA2 BRH1 BRH2 LEC1 LEC2 HUN1 HUN2 MNZ1 MNZ2 2nd 210 Source:

Complete Formula Renault 3.5 Series results (key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete GP3 Series results (key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap) Year Entrant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Pos Points 2014 Jenzer Motorsport CATFEA CATSPR RBRFEA RBRSPR SILFEA SILSPR HOCFEA HOCSPR HUNFEA HUNSPR SPAFEA SPASPR MNZFEA MNZSPR SOCFEA SOCSPR YMCFEA YMCSPR 12th 29 2015 Jenzer Motorsport CATFEA CATSPR RBRFEA RBRSPR SILFEA SILSPR HUNFEA HUNSPR SPAFEA SPASPR MNZFEA MNZSPR SOCFEA SOCSPR BHRFEA BHRSPR YMCFEA YMCSPR 13th 22Sources:

Complete FIA World Endurance Championship results

24 Hours of Le Mans results Year Team Co-Drivers Car Class Laps Rebellion Racing Alexandre Imperatori Dominik Kraihamer Rebellion R-One-AER LMP1 200 DNF DNFSources: