Franco Colapinto says he has to work upon sprint F1 weekends after identifying weakness in the course of 2025, where he couldn’t get up to speed.
Having started his F1 season after six rounds, Colapinto had a lot on his table to adjust with Alpine in a new environment from Williams. He not only had to get to the grips with the new car, but also had to switch a bit due to front wing rule change from Barcelona onward.
That change affected him for almost the whole stretch until the summer break. No matter how much he pushed, it didn’t deliver results like it did for teammate Pierre Gasly. Post summer break, it was still better for Colapinto, as he felt confident driving the car.
But one thing he wants to work around for 2026 is the sprint race weekends. After completing handful in both 2024 and 2025 F1 seasons, he felt he needs to master those race weekends where he faltered to find confidence. With just the lone practice, he didn’t get enough time to smoothen the weekend.
During normal weekends, he has FP2 and FP3 to find performance and confidence in the car, but with just one practice, it leaves him vulnerable in sprint qualifying and the rest of the weekend. “Yeah, I think it’s one thing that happened to me in the sprint weekends and it’s one thing I want to fix for next year,” said Colapinto to media, when asked about his struggles in F1 2025.
“Every sprint weekend I found myself much more uncomfortable, a bit more off the pace as well compared to normal race weekends and it wasn’t something that I had the year before in Williams but it’s something that is taking me longer to understand a few things in this car.
“I believe that in the sprint weekends it’s much more punishing and that’s why we kept trying things to understand what was working better and I think we did take a lot more information than any other sprint weekend in terms of doing things and trying stuff in the setup.
“So on that side it was positive, but maybe it was not positive in the performance. It was a tough weekend but I think we learned some stuff on the setup. It’s very common in sport,” summed up Colapinto, who didn’t manage to score in 2025 after scoring handful in 2024.
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