Franco Colapinto arrives at the Japanese classification with doubts about the third test

The Argentine driver was far away in the last training session at Suzuka, the third round of F1, and the next start will be qualifying. Pierre Gasly beat him by 772 thousandths.

That Saturday jump that Franco Colapinto usually takes in every Formula 1 weekend that starts off difficult did not appear at the Japanese GP, the third date of the 77th season of the World Championship. “It was a complicated day,” the Argentine had said after the Japanese Friday and that difficulty continued in the third training session, in which he finished 17th and far from the lead and his teammate Pierre Gasly.

Alpine put together a similar program for Colapinto and Gasly in the third practice session and in the pairing of laps, the Argentine was almost eight tenths behind the Frenchman in all attempts. The first stint for both of them was with medium tires, the only difference with Franco was that a quick pass through the pits changed his front wing, probably trying to find a better load for that understeer that has bothered them since it all started in Suzuka.

That distance of almost eight tenths with respect to Gasly in the pairing of each attempt surprised Colapinto: “I really don’t understand the gap. It’s very big, I’m quite lost,” he told his engineer over the radio.

The final part of practice was on soft tires for the two Enstone team riders. Franco went to the pits to leave the middle decks after a slight mistake, without any consequences (he went wide on the external asphalt in La Cuchara). And there the gap remained, close to eight tenths. The only variation was that Colapinto could not open his second attempt with soft tires at the right time and had to do another preparation lap. Finally, Colapinto clocked 1m31s759 to finish 18th, 2.397 behind Kimi Antonelli, the fastest (on Friday he was 2.305 behind Oscar Piastri, who had dominated) and lost 772 thousandths to Gasly, who took tenth place. The driver from Buenos Aires was the second runner with the most laps in the session (25), only surpassed by Carlos Sainz, with 26. Gasly completed 20 because his stint on medium tires was shorter than that of his teammate.

Colapinto complained about the front, as happened on Friday and as had also happened in Melbourne, where his Alpine suffered in the fast parts, something that happened again in the fast corners of Suzuka. Stuart Barlow, the track engineer, assessed Franco in comparison to Gasly: “We lost two and a half tenths in the first sector, four tenths in sector two and one in sector three.” After the three complicated training sessions he went through, Colapinto will arrive at qualifying with doubts. Because if I repeated the result of the last test, I would not surpass the Q1 bar. In fact, Colapinto was 16th in the first trial and 17th in the second. The big challenge will be to be able to move on to Q2.