Franco Colapinto’s dramatic Imola GP crash should not outline his Alpine F1 debut

Any driver’s weekend will all the time be outlined by a heavy smash, and that is amplified if the motive force in query is Franco Colapinto, who made a high-profile 2025 debut with Alpine after changing Jack Doohan simply six races into the Method 1 season.

The Argentine was on his final lap on the finish of Q1 when he drove onto the grass on the exit of the second flip at Tamburello. This despatched him spinning into the gravel entice and into the limitations.

A crash was the very last thing Colapinto wanted, following the heavy shunts he sustained in the course of the second a part of his nine-race stint with Williams final yr in Brazil and Las Vegas. Even the appearing Alpine boss, Flavio Briatore, made this clear on Friday at Imola.

“He must be quick, not crash and rating factors,” Briatore stated. “I’m solely asking him to do three issues, not 10. If he does them nicely, he’ll drive ceaselessly.”

It is truthful to argue Colapinto did not ship on at the very least a kind of requests by crashing final Saturday, however a broader view of the Argentinian driver’s weekend does present some encouraging indicators as nicely.

All eyes had been on Colapinto when he returned to the paddock on Thursday, this time as an Alpine racing driver. Firstly of his first F1 stint with Williams, expectations had been restricted. Though his recognition shortly exploded in his house nation, as he’s the primary Argentinian driver to race in F1 for greater than twenty years.

This time, his loyal Argentinian followers began making noise early within the weekend and confirmed up on the racetrack on Thursday wanting to witness their driver’s return. Whereas many observers felt it was harsh for Alpine to interchange Doohan after simply six races of the season, it was now on Colapinto to make the seat his and show that he might obtain what the Australian could not. So, did he?

Getting nearer to Gasly

After serving to the staff with the simulator in Enstone over current races, and embarking on a sequence of testing of earlier automobiles (TPC) occasions, Colapinto spent Friday’s follow periods attending to grips with driving the Alpine A525 for the primary time in actual life.

The Argentinian completed follow one in seventeenth place, 0.677 seconds behind his team-mate Pierre Gasly, having been unable to maximise the potential of the delicate tyre in his solely try of the session. However, Colapinto lowered this hole to lower than half a second by the top of the second follow session, attaining thirteenth place, whereas Gasly was a formidable third on what the Frenchman known as the staff’s greatest Friday of the yr.

Having accomplished 50 laps on day one, Colapinto continued to enhance throughout Saturday’s third and last follow session forward of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, descending to 18th quickest within the charts however ending simply three locations and two tenths behind Gasly.

The hole between the 2 Alpine drivers remained constant in Q1, with Colapinto setting a lap time of 1m16.256s on his first try. This put him in competition for a spot in Q2, simply three tenths behind Gasly.

The crash that occurred within the last seconds of Q1 undermined the Argentinian’s weekend. In his defence nevertheless, he wasn’t the one driver to make a mistake.

Gabriel Bortoleto misplaced management of his Sauber and hit the limitations on the finish of FP1; each Racing Bulls, Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson, went off in nearly the identical place as Colapinto, with completely different penalties; and Crimson Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda, a driver on the point of reaching 100 grand prix begins, crashed closely in Q1.

“It was in all probability the primary time that I actually reached the restrict of the automobile,” Colapinto defined as he took accountability for the accident that left the entrance of his Alpine broken.

“I used to be all the time a bit under, and it is simple to transcend that restrict. I used to be pushing the bounds a bit extra. The margins are very tight in qualifying these days, so I attempt to use the kerbs a bit extra.

“It seems actually dangerous. Nevertheless it’s not as dangerous because it seems when it comes to how I’ve tailored to the automobile. I am a lot happier and extra comfy within the seat than I used to be yesterday.”

Good tyre administration gives optimism

The one-place penalty that Colapinto incurred on account of a miscommunication with the staff relating to when to go away the storage after Tsunoda’s accident didn’t assist in Sunday’s race, nor did the couple of locations he misplaced within the opening lap.

Nonetheless, given the monitor traits and his lack of expertise with the automobile, an enormous restoration was by no means a sensible goal for Colapinto. However, he nonetheless managed to showcase stable tyre administration within the first stint, when the automobile is heavier with gas, and that’s usually a weak spot for rookies.

He was one of many final drivers to eliminate the medium Pirelli tyres when he pitted on lap 22, one thing he might have capitalised on if it hadn’t been for the poorly timed VSC. However, within the latter phases of the race, he was capable of match Gasly’s tempo and even set a sooner lap time than his team-mate, albeit with tyres half the age of the Frenchman’s.

Franco Colapinto, Alpine

Photograph by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Photographs by way of Getty Photographs

The tip outcome was an unspectacular sixteenth place in Imola for Colapinto, who didn’t fulfil all of Briatore’s expectations, however neither did his teammate following the error that value Gasly the chance to attain factors.

“It was truly a constructive day after qualifying,” he stated. “The race was a bit in opposition to us. I did the longest stint on the medium tyre, I used to be going for a one-stop, we modified the technique fairly a bit and I had excellent tempo in comparison with once we had been on the onerous tyres. Once we stopped to placed on the onerous tyres a few laps later, the VSC got here and killed me.

“An important factor is that we had the tempo and that in comparison with these round us, we had been very robust. After that, we’ve to work to continue to learn and understanding the automobile just a little extra.

“I feel we’ve good knowledge to enter the subsequent races with just a little extra studying and just a little extra comfy with the automobile.”