Franco Colapinto admits lack of confidence in the Alpine F1 car for bad returns so far upon return, as he feels the front wing change is one reason for it.
Last year, Colapinto managed to out-drive against any issues in the Williams F1 car. But with Alpine, that confidence is missing, especially in the corner which is making his life difficult. The unpredictability is causing him to have two minds on things, thereby decreasing that confidence.
He is unable to maximise the weekend as a whole as too much time is spent on regaining confidence. By the time he is in qualifying and the race, it is too late. He is still to have a weekend where everything has aligned, it is always that something is missing and he is in the catch-up situation.
“Yeah, I said since the start, that I’m lacking confidence with the car, and that I’m not climbing sometimes my feet in some corners, I’m like, struggling to be able to turn in and to come into the corners, and that’s just not really giving me much confidence,” said Colapinto to media. “And when they had this issue last year, I could go straight in and be quick straight away and straight forward, and now I’m struggling a bit more with that, and that’s the reality is.
“I don’t have the confidence as I had maybe last year, and that’s a bit costly in F1, and we are getting a little bit better at it, it’s still I think this thing of not maximising the weekend as a whole, and we are not, like, I think nailing everything in every single session, and that’s what I feel that we really need to improve. I don’t feel on a weekend that I would say everything has been perfect on my side, or on the strategy side, or on the setup side, it’s always been something that we could have done better.
“And that’s I think just part of the process as well, but it’s something we need to keep improving, and part of the confidence that I sometimes lack, I think it’s something we are getting a little bit better at now,” summed up Colapinto, who also points at the front wing rule change from Barcelona, which has caused problems for him, since the weekend he felt the best was his first race in Imola.
They still ran the old wing in that round and only changed after that in Spain. He is aware of the issues, as is the F1 team, it is now about compromise which will allow him to drive with confidence for the rest of the 2025 season. “Yeah, it’s been a bit of an unknown, I think, generally the car is a bit tricky on entries, and that’s what we are working on, on my side, because it got a little bit trickier on tracks, I struggle more basically,” explained Colapinto.
“So, it’s like a trend, kind of, when it gets a little bit worse, it’s where I lack a bit more performance, and we, most of the times, I would relate that to those issues, so, I think now we have a clear picture, and where we need to get better. We have to, to keep working with the car to be more confident, I do believe that it’s there, and that the car can do it, and that it can be as I want, so we are working hard.
“I think when I go back to Imola, before the front wing change, and all these things, it was where I felt best, and it was very early, it was the first race I ran, so, we are just working to try and understand that, I think once we do it, everything is going to get easier, so, let’s hope we get that click that we need, and then I think it’s going to go up from there,” summed up Colapinto.
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