Franco Colapinto is happy to get full winter and pre-season programme with Alpine ahead of F1 2026 start, which was missing from his end.
For the last two seasons, Colapinto hasn’t got the chance to undertake the full winter programme and pre-season testing, either with Williams or with Alpine. With the former, he switched from racing in F2 to F1, while with the latter, he started early but still didn’t get to do the pre-season testing.
But for 2026, Colapinto spent the whole of winter to streamline his side of things with his mechanics and engineers, which he can now test during the pre-season testing in Barcelona and Bahrain. And this is why the Argentine is looking forward to the full programme to start afresh.
“Yeah, I’m really looking forward to 2026 to be honest, especially just having a normal year starting with a pre-season test,” said Colapinto to media. “Being able to work with a car from scratch is going to be quite nice and quite different to what I’m used to coming in the middle of the season without knowing many things and without being on top of many things that the drivers have been since the start of the year.
“So I think it’s going to be very helpful and I’m looking forward to that, to having that luxury. So yeah, I’m definitely looking forward to 2026,” summed up Colapinto, who feels being a rookie or non-rookie in F1 is different to the feeder series. In the junior championships, a non-rookie is usually only 2-3 year old, but in the pinnacle, a driver can be 20-years old as well.
But he feels that 2026 will open up a chance for a youngster like him to be closer to experienced pack under new regulations, where everyone will have to learn the trade from scratch. “I will be able to tell you when I drive it [the 2026 car if it easy or not],” continued Colapinto. “But it’s different. It’s something that we are not used to.
“Most of us drivers, I think for the rookies it’s maybe a bit of a help. Maybe it just puts everyone a little bit closer together. When no one knows what’s going to happen and when it’s new for everyone, like F2 or F3, the non-rookie drivers have been there for 2 or 3 years. Here [in F1] they have been for 10, 12, 15, 20, so, it’s a lot different to be a rookie in F1 than being a rookie in another series.
“And I think having a completely different car, something that no one really knows how it’s going to develop, it helps us to be a bit closer. I think there are going to be some drivers that can get to grips with it quicker than others. And we will need to learn from that. I think the sim will help a lot. So, a lot of simulators, we are trying to do the best prep possible,” summed up Colapinto.
After the issues in 2025, the Argentine feels Alpine has learnt its mistakes. He reckons they identified the weaknesses and the team has worked throughout the year to address them to be better prepared for 2026. “I think especially, more than anything, it’s focusing on ourselves, just fixing all the issues that we had in 2025,” said Colapinto.
“The main part is that we know that a lot of our problems are fixed with 2026’s car and that we’ve been working on the specific areas of the car that have been a bit weak. And knowing that we improved those, I think makes me quite confident that we are going to be stronger. There is a lot of changes and the boys in the factory have been working a lot.
“So yeah, I think it’s looking positive at the minute and of course we need to see where they are. But on our side we’ve done the best possible and actually we’ve learned a lot from our previous cars to understand what direction we need to go,” summed up Colapinto.
Here’s Alpine F1 2026 car and livery
Here’s note on shakedown