On lap 60 of the chaotic IndyCar Detroit Grand Prix, Arrow McLaren driver Theo Pourchaire and Argentinian racer Agustin Canapino collided on the restart. Pourchaire, in only his third race, acknowledged that he had received “a lot of hate and death threats” as a result.
Pourchaire, the current reserve driver for stakes F1 team Kick Sauber, will drive the No. 6 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet through the remainder of the IndyCar season after original driver David Marcus was forced to retire with a wrist injury that ended his 2024 season. It’s been a tough test for the French racer, and a collision with No. 78 Juncos Hollinger racer Agustin Canapino didn’t help.
On the restart, Pourchaire went late into the difficult Turn 3, while Canapino thought he could slip behind the No. 60 car of Hélio Castroneves. Both cars arrived at the same point in the corner at the same time, resulting in what was ultimately a race-long, but rather silly, accident.
Little was said about the contact during the NBC broadcast, but on social media Monday evening, Arrow McLaren said X was “Arrow McLaren Follow “We do not tolerate abuse or discrimination in any form, and anyone who engages in such behavior is not welcome in our online community.”
Théo Pourchaire was quick to quote the post, adding:“It’s sad to have received so much hate and death threats in the last 24 hours because of a small incident at the Detroit Grand Prix. I hope everyone understands that we are all human and make mistakes, but it’s not normal to abuse people online. Please be kind to each other,” she wrote, adding two emojis.
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It soon became clear that Pourchaire was being inundated with angry messages from fans of Canapino, who was a hugely popular touring car driver in his native Argentina before Juncos Hollinger Racing invested in IndyCar and recruited the Argentinian racer to their team. Since Canapino’s first IndyCar race in 2023, the driver has been involved in quite a few incidents on the track, leading to fans slamming his rival.
Indeed, Racer magazine’s Marshall Pruett reported last year that former Juncos Hollinger driver Callum Ilott had been subjected to “social media attacks … from some of the Canapino fans” after the team was finally forced to part ways with the Briton at the Long Beach Grand Prix. Similar attacks were unleashed on Ilott at Laguna Seca later in the season, and Juncos Hollinger’s refusal to fight back against the anger of the Argentine fans only strengthened Ilott’s decision to leave the team.
Additionally, in the aftermath of the Pourchere/Canapino fiasco, fans began sharing videos of team owner Ricardo Juncos calling Pourchere the “son of a thousand whores” or “son of a bitch” in Spanish in response to the incident.
The fallout is still ongoing, particularly Arrow McLaren’s X-post about abuse, which has left unsuspecting fans wondering even more about what happened between Pourchaire and Canapino. Juncos Hollinger Racing has yet to make an X-post of its own, having previously only publicly responded to one incident where Argentinian fans had attacked other drivers online.
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