Franco Colapinto and his hope of having a good time in Qatar

The Argentine bases his hope on the good performance that Alpine had with Pierre Gasly in 2024 and on the characteristics of the Lusail track, which may be good for his A525.

The Las Vegas ordeal for Franco Colapinto happened. Added to the lack of competitiveness of his Alpine in the characteristics of the Nevada urban layout was a blow by Alex Albon to the rear of his car just after the race began, which damaged his diffuser and generated a loss of aerodynamic load that must have been carried throughout the entire GP.. The impact of the Thai, who was involved in the chaos created by Gabriel Bortoleto’s impetuous start, was the icing on the cake, because the performance of the A525 had not been good over the weekend, except when the track became puddled in the deluge of qualifying. Already settled in Qatar, where this weekend the penultimate round of the 76th season of the World Championship will be held (the last of the year with a sprint), the Argentine driver hopes to have a better weekend.

The ex-Williams driver’s hope is based on the fact that Pierre Gasly was fifth in the 2024 edition. Of course, Alpine has little developed the car since then, while its rivals have chosen to work for 2025. The characteristics of the Lusail track can help the extremely rigid Alpine, because the asphalt is quite flat and without potholes, the complete opposite of Las Vegas.

“Last year the team did well here, I hope we repeat it and it will be a good weekend. There is a lot to work on and a sprint opens up more possibilities,” said Colapinto.who after the accident in the sprint in Brazil had to resort to the spare chassis. “We are fixing a couple of things with the chassis and I think we will be better than in Las Vegas, we will be more competitive. I hope to be better in terms of flooring and things like that. It is a very flat circuit, it has fast corners. That is why the Alpine works better here because there are not so many potholes and the car is very hard. And it goes better in fast corners. I hope it goes well. Last year Pierre did well and gives hope,” Franco added in an interview with AM850.

The Alpine counter in Qatar will be the driving force. The fast corners, at constant high speed, will bring out the weaknesses of the Renault power unit, which has two races left in F1 (Alpine will race with Mercedes in 2026, the year the new technical regulations come into force). “The engine is complicated because there are many hard corners when turning and you need the thrust of the engine, because they are hard and those are more difficult. We will see how it goes, I hope to go from less to more over the weekend,” he said.

In a conversation with the rest of the media installed in Qatar, Colapinto was asked if he believes it could be a scenario that allows him to score his first points in the 2025 season. “We will try, every weekend we are trying to score points, but it is being complicated at the moment. I think that in these last races the car looked better and stronger, so that gives us hope. I was very close in some circuits, but lately I had a little more difficulties again, so I think there are good reasons for that and hopefully here we will be stronger again,” analyzed. The Argentine’s career had its spring from Hungary onwards, during which time he equaled and even surpassed Gasly. In Mexico the story got a little complicated and both in Brazil and in Las Vegas he suffered a lot and was surpassed (and at times by a good margin) by his teammate.

The fact that Qatar has a sprint race completely shortens the rehearsal work and is reduced to just one 60-minute session. For Colapinto, Fridays were hard for a good part of the season and having only had one training session, he will have to maximize his work to be able to arrive well at the time of qualifying for the short race. “Sometimes it is difficult for me to find my way with the car and the set-up at the beginning, and that is why I need a full Friday, and when that does not happen it becomes a little more difficult, but hopefully we can be on top of everything and start again,” he concluded.