Colapinto suffered with Alpine and could not keep up with Gasly, who added in Brazil

The Argentine driver finished in 15th position in the San Pablo Grand Prix, in Interlagos. His teammate scored a point.

For Franco Colapinto, the 2025 San Pablo GP will forever be remembered. And not because of something sporting, because he once again suffered with an uncompetitive Alpine and, to make matters worse, had to change in the middle of the weekend after the strong blow in the sprint on Saturday. But The Interlagos track was the place chosen by the Enstone team to announce its continuity for 2026 as a starter. The rest was quite tortuous and he closed the visit to São Paulo with 15th place in the main competition.

Colapinto did not have a good time with his A525 at any time during the weekend. On Friday he suffered in qualifying for the sprint and on Saturday he got hit. Alpine decided to change the chassis due to the damage it had suffered. And, of course, with a new car he didn’t have time to get familiar and so he had to go to qualifying, in which he couldn’t get past Q1. Until Sunday’s race arrived.

The Argentine moved up two places before starting because Esteban Ocon and Max Verstappen started from the pits. Franco went out on the track with medium tires and on the first lap he suffered a strange collision from Lewis Hamilton in the middle of the straight.. Rare for a driver of the quality of the seven-time champion, an unusual miscalculation that did not generate a miraculous puncture for the Alpine (the Englishman was penalized with five seconds).

For much of the race, the Argentine did not have a good pace, suffering from grip and degradation. He went from the medium tires to the soft tires on lap 30 and in his first full lap with the red tires he took the lap record (they would later surpass it). But it was just an oasis in the desert, because once again it lost pace. His best stint was the last: he stopped on lap 44 and returned to the medium compound. There he was able to maintain consistency, but the die was cast.

For Alpine, the visit to Brazil was a balm in the middle of a forgettable year. After seven blank weekends, The Enstone team added again thanks to Gaslythe only driver who brought water for the French mill in 2025. The one from Normandy scored two units, one in the sprint and another in the main race and the meager sum of the issue went to 22, but he remains comfortably in last place and 40 behind Sauber, ninth.

That there are only three races left to finish the year (Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi) is, without a doubt, the best news that Alpine has, which has bet everything on 2026 and hope it arrives as soon as possible. And Colapinto will be there, after Thursday’s announcement, the best thing he took away from his visit to San Pablo.