Franco Colapinto will not do a traditional summer break as he intends to continue with his learning phase after a tricky re-start to F1 career.
After Colapinto moved to Alpine, the voices grew for the Argentine to be immediately put in the F1 car in place of Jack Doohan. The team kept the Australian to start the year but reports emerged of a six-race deal, which was eventually confirmed when he was replaced eventually.
Not only Flavio Briatore, but a section of fans had high hopes from Colapinto. He started off decently as well, but as the season progressed, things started to drop. He found it difficult to adjust and confidence dipped. He is still trying to get that mojo back with renewed confidence.
The car hasn’t been easy as well on him. Even though the summer break is on, Colapinto is not going to sit back. While he can’t do much at the factory since it has to be closed, the Argentine will continue the off-factory learning to get things back on track in the second half.
He hopes that the break can aide in reset. “Yeah, of course, the shutdown, it’s a way of resetting everything and starting back, maybe from zero, not from zero, but from, I don’t know, reset, and maybe it’s that what I need, I don’t really know,” said Colapinto to media. “But we’ve been working hard with the team to understand some of the issues, and I do believe that we’ve been getting better at some things.
“But it’s just that feeling that nothing has been, connected or put back together, and that package that we have, it’s been maximised at times, but not in some other times, and maybe it’s a bit more critical, and it’s a work that is still in progress, but I feel that there is progress that is being done behind the scenes, it’s just that when you don’t see the results, it’s very tricky to keep pushing, to keep working in the same direction, because you don’t actually see the results happening.
“And it’s something that you can’t really rely on when you don’t see it, but I do believe that we’ve been getting better in many areas, and that we are still working very well with the team, and yeah, that it’s going to come, but it’s just taking longer than what I would like. I think on my side, my season has been a bit shorter so far, I’ve done a few races less, so, I need to keep working, and when you are not really comfortable with the performance with some things.
“I think you just need to keep pushing and keep going, and of course you need time to reset, but you need to use the free time to try to keep learning and understanding what you need to get better at, so, we will, on my side of course, keep pushing, keep pushing forward and trying to come back from the summer break stronger than what we left,” summed up Colapinto.
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