Alpine left disappointed after Franco Colapinto defied team orders in F1 US GP, as the Argentine explains his stance plus Pierre Gasly brushes it off.
It was a straightforward F1 US GP for Alpine pair of Gasly and Colapinto until the final moments. The duo was mostly at the fag end of the running and had Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto on their tail. It was the Frenchman leading the Argentine and the Brazilian for 17th.
To add, they had Max Verstappen on their tail to lap them. It made things slightly complicated. Gasly was slow due to old tyres and fuel management. Colapinto was managing the same, but seemingly had better pace and tyres in that moment, while being chased by Bortoleto.
He was advised on the radio to maintain position, but Colapinto defied the order and passed Gasly at Turn 1. The Frenchman lost out to Bortoleto as well in the process. While the Argentine explained his bit to be extracting the maximum he could, there was disappointment at management level.
Team manager Steve Nielsen expressed his opinion in that regard, while Gasly brushed off the situation by focusing more on lack of pace. The Frenchman, however, noted that he did his part and any discussion on it, will be done internally – echoing Nielsen’s thoughts.
“I think it was just a tough day for both of us, tough weekend in general,” said Colapinto to media. “We struggled, I think some things learned after a tough weekend, hopefully we can be a bit stronger in Mexico. But yeah, of course, we need to keep working as a team, it was a tough day. We had quite a bit more pace than Pierre in the last stint. And had Bortoleto really close behind, attacking very hard.
“He was much quicker than us and it was holding me up with how slow Pierre was going. I think it was the best for the situation to have me in front. I am motivated. We know that the car is tough to drive and it’s very difficult at the moment. We swapped positions a lot of times this year and they also let us race in other tracks. Here for this event, I was attacked very heavily by Bortoleto.
“It was probably the best to have me in front, otherwise we were going to get both overtaken. We just need to analyse with all the data, every moment in the race. No, I don’t know [if the call was a surprise]. I think we are trying really hard to be strong for next year, and we are analyzing every situation and trying to get better at those.
“It’s these moments that are so very important in a weekend, even though it’s not for points, we are trying to make the best call possible every time,” summed up Colapinto, while explaining his side of things, which will fall flat considering he eventually defied the orders. As noted, Gasly was more disappointed with how the grand prix panned out with lack of pace and bad strategy.
It was more of a procession in the end. “We will see inside the team,” said Gasly to media. “First stint was good, but we boxed, not too sure why, we will see with the team and another poor pit stop, come out right at the gearbox of Esteban instead of ahead, yeah, tried to fight and overheat the tyres. Yeah, very poor stint on soft in the traffic, ultimately we were just too slow.
“The rest of it, honestly, it is stuff that we will review inside the team, we were just too slow. I did my bit. Honestly, we should not even be right there, I care more about the performance side than this type of thing. Yeah, done my bit, I am sure we will review inside the team,” summed up Gasly.
Meanwhile, team manager Nielsen added: “As a team we have a lot to review across the board from this weekend. While our level of competitiveness is still far from being able to score points, it was encouraging to make a small step forward relative to recent events looking at the weekend as a whole. Today, like a lot of teams, we had to adapt our strategy based on the conditions and what we saw on track with the Hard tyre not looking to be a favourable race tyre.
“On Pierre’s side, we covered an undercut threat to box onto Softs, a little earlier than we wanted, and then had a slow pit-stop, which we will review and rectify. Franco was able to extend his Medium run to have a tyre delta towards the end of the race where he caught up to Pierre.
“We gave the instruction for the drivers to maintain position as we were managing fuel with both cars and the added variable of the number of laps remaining with the leaders in close proximity. As a team, any instruction made by the pit wall is final and today we are disappointed that this didn’t happen so it’s something we will review and deal with internally.”
Here’s moment between two Alpine drivers: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-united-states-grand-prix-colapinto-defies-team-orders-to-pass-gasly-on-the-last-lap.1846448427401232816
Here’s Alexander Albon passing Franco Colapinto: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-united-states-grand-prix-albon-takes-colapinto-with-millimetre-perfect-move.1846442786404077247
Here’s how F1 US GP panned out
