Franco Colapinto, to AM850.com: “Do I want it to be 2026? Yes”

The Argentine driver spoke about how bad he had a time during the race due to the performance of his Alpine and, now confirmed for next year, he hopes to start the new project as soon as possible.

As soon as the race starts, the appearance of the paddock changes completely. The members of the teams that are not directly affected by the work on the track begin with the disassembly of the hospitality and putting away the elements that are no longer going to be used. When the checkered flag goes down, the paddock is a stampede. Mattia Binotto, the strong man of the Audi team that is now Sauber, passes by AM850.com with his enormous suitcase, facing the stairs to head to the parking lot. The San Pablo GP had ended just ten minutes ago.

Getting to the press corral is no longer as simple a task as it was before the start of the race. Boxes, packaging, even dry ice scattered on the floor are on the way to the press area. All pilots must attend there. The first to leave is Lance Stroll, not very fond of grades. Franco Colapinto is paying attention to the TV media, which has ample space. Graphics, on the other hand, work in a small sector and it is a lot of work. Once the tour with the television media is over, Sam Mallinson, Alpine’s head of communications, brings Franco into the scrum of journalists that includes AM850.com.

The Argentine explains how he lived his career in San Pablo. “It wasn’t a good weekend and obviously I’m not very happy. It was a long race, without much pace, with bad balance…“, the story begins. Immediately, he somewhat disagrees with Alpine’s strategy: “The race became complicated, we followed a very similar strategy to everyone in front of us, we did nothing different and that led us to stay in the same position as always. We could have tried something riskier and seen what happened. But the car also did not have good degradation to make a single stop. So, everything is very hard. We have to review things because compared to Friday it felt like a very different car. With a very different balance and it didn’t help.”

Colapinto used two compounds in the race: medium and soft. “With the soft ones it was a disaster. With the medium ones it was better, but it is a very difficult car. You have to review the entire weekend at the factory,” he says and turns to leave. But he stops when asked by AM850.com about whether he would like to be there in 2026. “Yes,” he answers and leaves.. With the signed contract that confirmed him as a starter for next year, the Argentine, like all Alpine, hopes that the new regulation project will change the team’s opaque performance in 2025.