Franco Colapinto sees improvement on his end with more confidence in the F1 car, as he tries to retain his Alpine seat for 2026 season.
After a decent start with Williams last year, Colapinto has had a tough time with Alpine in his second F1 run this year. He admitted to confidence issues with the car after regulation changes made to front wing, which caught out the French manufacturer after the Barcelona weekend.
But in the last few races, Colapinto has felt better in the car and the results have shown it, even though he hasn’t scored points. He feels happy in the car and confidence has risen to make bold moves and be consistent. “I am very happy, I think personally I am in a much happier place with my personal performance,” he said to media. “I am feeling more comfortable in the car, more consistent.
“It still is quite an unpredictable car at times, which is not great for the confidence. Of course, there has been a lot of improvement going on over the last few weekends. Even though the result doesn’t look very good or promising, there is improvement. When the car comes, when we are competitive, I am sure that this is really going to help.
“It’s going to make us stronger. It’s good that we are becoming stronger now, in the tough moments and in the tough races. I am sure that when we get the opportunity, we are going to maximise it. It’s been better since then. I’m just trying to focus race by race and trying to be focused on my own performance. We have not been having the results we want as a team and I’m fully focused on maximising what I can do in the car.
“And then the rest will come. So just I think fully focused on my side and trying to maximise everything,” summed up Colapinto, who responded to latest rumour about his future. Off-late, there’s been lots of rumours about his future and that Paul Aron is in scheme of things. But for now, he is not thinking about the future and doing what he can at the moment in the car.
“No, there has been a lot of rumors and I don’t really look at them too much,” continued Colapinto. “I’m used to it and it’s just the way, the sport from day one. Any sport is like this and the athletes need to get used to it, I guess. Yeah, I mean honestly I don’t really know. It’s not my thing to decide. I’m just happy at where I am now, happier than before of course.
“And working well with the team, that is what I wanted. I’m kind of achieving all the personal aspects or goals that I had since the start. And now I am getting closer to that and achieving it. Of course we know that the performance is tricky. We are not having a very consistent car. Some tracks it’s quite competitive, some other tracks we are lacking quite a lot of pace. That’s of course going to affect the result, but generally I’m happy with the improvement I made with my engineers and the guys.”
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