Pierre St. Laurent
Pierre St. Laurent (born 22nd February, 1999), is a Canadian racing driver currently competing in the AutoReject 3.5 Championship.
Early Life
St. Laurent was born and raised in the Canadian city of Shawinigan, Quebec. Having been brought up on accounts of the legendary Grand Prix driver, Gilles Villeneuve, the young Canadian resolved to follow in the footsteps of his esteemed predecessor.
In spite of the unenviable finances of his family, the young St. Laurent ultimately managed to convince his parents to purchase a dilapidated go-kart from the local scrapyard, and subsequently began competing in local karting events at the age of nine. St. Laurent found success immediately, with many observers noting his natural aptitude behind the wheel. His ability enabled him to quickly dominate a variety of regional and national karting championships before he progressed up to the Ontario Formula Ford Championship and the Quebec Formula Tour 1600.
Though he won both championships with relative ease, St. Laurent realized that the comparative dearth of quality and prestige of the series he had been competing in had begun to hinder his future prospects. Consequently, St. Laurent made preparations for a move to the United Kingdom, widely considered as the center of the racing world, in an effort to further his career.
F1RDS/AutoReject 2.0
St. Laurent soon discovered the difficulties of finding a drive as a foreign transplant in the highly competitive European racing environment. Desperate, he placed an advertisement in the classifieds section of a local Cambridgeshire newspaper for his services, fully expecting to be ignominiously demoted back to karting. Much to his surprise, however, the listing yielded a response from Plus One's Reject Development Series team, offering St. Laurent the seat recently vacated by the outgoing Jack Connolly. Leaping at the opportunity, St. Laurent thus found himself in the cockpit of a Plus One RDS car, with effectively no experience with the new equipment.
2016
St. Laurent enjoyed a very respectable start to his RDS career, qualifying sixth and finishing eighth on his debut. His inexperience soon became evident, however, as he struggled with consistency and car set-up throughout the season. Largely due to these difficulties, he was decisively beaten by his Swiss team-mate, Daniela Anger.
Nevertheless, the Canadian still managed to impress with two very strong drives into the points, with a fourth place at Oulton Park serving as the highlight of his year. A second place finish at the Macau Grand Prix capped off a robust end to the season for St. Laurent.
In post-season testing, St. Laurent set a time six tenths off the pace on Day One, before topping the timesheets for both sessions on Day Two.
Accident at Motegi
Under contractual obligations to PORE, St. Laurent raced in the inaugural season of the Formula Rejects Nippon Championship, where he struggled with an uncompetitive car. He was outperformed by his more experienced teammate, Josh Carlisle, on most occasions.
St. Laurent found himself running strongly at Motegi when, completely unsighted, the Mazda of Joel Melrose speared into the side of St. Laurent's Swift at well over two hundred and forty kilometers an hour, sending the stricken Canadian into the wall at a near ninety degree angle. Unconscious, St. Laurent was airlifted to Motegi General Hospital, where he was diagnosed with and treated for a severe concussion and a shattered femur. Under medical orders, St. Laurent was sidelined from racing for the next six months, dashing his hopes of challenging for the AR 2.0 Europe title before the season had even begun.
2017
Following extensive discussions with his doctors and his physical therapist, St. Laurent returned to the cockpit for Vallelunga, where he wrestled with both the new machine itself as well as an uncompetitive PORE setup. Nonetheless, St. Laurent quickly recovered, scoring a fifth place and a podium at Oulton Park, before eventually taking his first victory in the series in Germany. Poor qualifying results and further setup issues conspired against a repetition of St. Laurent's impressive end to the 2016 season; he finished outside of the points for all three of the remaining races.
2019
After a part season in AR3.5, St. Laurent would return to 2.0 in order to return to full fitness after his season ending injury. St. Laurent would join the Driver Performance Laboratory team for the 2019 season, and would immediately show his class by winning the feature races of both the opening rounds.
St. Laurent's good form earned him a test with IndyCar team Andretti Herta Autosport at the 2019 Mid-Ohio Young Drivers' Test in July. This season also saw St. Laurent join the Red Bull Junior Team.
AutoReject 3.5
After two impressive - although incomplete - campaigns in F1RDS/AR 2.0E, St. Laurent was promoted to AutoReject 3.5 for the 2018 season, remaining with Plus One. St. Laurent's season would end prematurely after suffering a season-ending injury in the Dutch feature race. St. Laurent returned to AutoReject 2.0 in 2019.
Complete Results
F1 Rejects Development Series
| Year | Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | DC | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Plus One Racing Engineering | ESP 1 |
ESP 2 |
GBR 1 |
GBR 2 |
ITA |
AUT |
TUR 1 |
TUR 2 |
FRA 1 8 |
FRA 2 21 |
GER Ret |
NED 11 |
ENG 1 11 |
ENG 2 4 |
BEL 1 12 |
BEL 2 Ret |
CZE 1 11 |
CZE 2 17 |
JPN 1 22 |
JPN 2 6 |
21st | 20 |
AutoReject 2.0 Europe
| Year | Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | DC | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Plus One Racing Engineering | ESP F |
ESP S |
FRA F |
FRA S |
AUT F |
AUT S |
ITA F 20 |
ITA S 23 |
GBR F 5 |
GBR S 2 |
NED F 5 |
NED S 8 |
GER F 1 |
GER S 16 |
CZE F 24 |
CZE S 17 |
8th | 49 |