Franco Colapinto speaks on what is ailing him at Alpine – amid F1 future rumours – which has been a tough going as opposed to his time at Williams.
After much talk about replacing Jack Doohan at Alpine in the first part of F1 2025 season, it hasn’t been easy going for Colapinto in the six races he has entered thus far. He is yet to score a point and has struggled largely to adapt in a car which is difficult to drive.
Colapinto agrees that it is a difficult car to learn or drive as opposed to Williams, but it is not an excuse, considering Pierre Gasly’s running. The Argentine is facing similar issues like Yuki Tsunoda is at Red Bull. With years in the car, both Gasly and Verstappen can drive around the issues.
Whereas both Colapinto and Tsunoda are only learning about the said troubles, which is catching them by surprise. They are in the absorption phase of identifying the surprises and limit. The Argentine feels he is able to catch up by Saturday and Sunday, but he wants to be in the position from Friday itself.
What’s the issues –
Colapinto: “Of course, we are still fighting against it. I think, generally, we’ve been doing a step forward. Already from Canada, it’s been feeling much better. But I think especially on Fridays is the focus. We need to try and understand how to bring the performance already on Fridays because then it’s a lot of time we are trying to find from Friday to Saturday. You kind of miss the little details, those little improvements that you normally do as soon as they don’t come because you are focusing on big things. So I think, in general, race pace has been very strong since FP1. We need to try to make the car a bit more predictable. We know our weaknesses. The car is quick when it’s in the window.
“As soon as it goes out of that, it becomes quite tricky to drive. Pierre has similar issues. But, of course, after he’s been driving the car for four years, it’s very easy to kind of understand where the limit is. I think, generally, the car is quick. That’s the main thing. We need to try to extract all the performance that we can do every time. That’s our main issue at the moment. I think there is also some things we need to improve as a team. We just need to find more performance of the car. We need to try to keep working together to make that car more predictable, a bit easier to drive for us, both drivers.”
Handling how with team –
Colapinto: “I think in general we are just trying to focus on winning the rest of the weekend. We are trying to get better as a team. We are, of course, on my side, pushing the most to improve the aspects that they have to improve. I am very quick in the races. I’m just running a bit more in qualifying. I know that there is things to find on our side, but also I think in general as a team we need to still do a step with the car. We are not quite there to score points every race. That is what we want. I think we need to make things better on every side as well, apart of just focusing on that.”
Solutions –
Colapinto: “I think if you look at Canada, I have been spinning like crazy on Friday. It’s probably not the easiest part we are going. I’m still doing mistakes on Friday and I think that’s what you need to do. You need to find the limit. There is something we are finding from Friday to Saturday every time of putting the car a little bit more like I want, also probably a bit of driving. There is driving, there is also setup and we are putting everything together and everything comes much more connected for Saturday. That is not really happening earlier in the weekend. I think that comes with experience with the car. It comes with knowing exactly what you want, how to maximise the performance very quickly in the weekend. It’s what I’m not doing and I think that’s purely for not knowing the car.
“Last year was probably a bit easier for me but this year as I’m struggling with that confidence on those entries, with that instability, with that feeling of nervousness and that just feeling that the car is not as well connected. It makes me not have the confidence that I need early in the weekend and that’s coming with a bit more time. We are trying to put our focus on Friday. I think it’s very important to start Friday better and when that happens, it’s going to make our life much easier for the rest of the weekend. It’s clear I think that we are doing a good work from Friday to Saturday where we find a lot of performance, but if that would come earlier it would just make our weekend better.”
Car difference from last year –
Colapinto: “Last year the Williams was not easy to drive either. The F1 cars are difficult. It’s not like going for a Sunday ride unfortunately but I think it’s what we do. It’s what we are paid to do. It’s driving the car as quick as we can and I think just to drive it as quick as we can you just need to be probably a bit more comfortable, a bit more adaptive to that and there is just things that sometimes are not clicking. It’s tricky when you come into a car that is different to what you are used to and I think in general we’ve been doing a good job in the factory. They are spending quite a bit of time to try and understand what we have to make better and I really do think that we are finding things. I think the beginning of the power races was more an issue of low speed corners that I found I could fix very quickly.
“I think by Canada we started to be really good in the low speed which was one of the main issues. Now we need to focus in other bits but I think the most important thing is that probably it’s little by little but it’s still coming that performance. Not as quick as I would like but the solutions to the issues are coming and we are finding them so that’s to me the main thing. The team is working hard, the motivation is still there even though we are struggling. It was a tough weekend, the last one was tricky for us as a team and we are just focusing on making everything better for everyone back in the factory. They are doing a big effort to keep pushing, to keep getting the parts ready, to work really hard for next season. We are trying to do our best here as drivers to make the team go back.”
Here’s Pierre Gasly on Yuki Tsunoda situation
Here’s Pierre Gasly on British GP
