Franco Colapinto completed Qatar’s only test
The Argentine finished 20th in the tight work program: in 60 minutes everyone had to prepare for the rest of the weekend because Lusail will have a sprint.
A lot of work in a short time. This happens every time the Formula 1 agenda has a sprint weekend marked and the usual three hours of training to find the best set-up are reduced to just 60 minutes. The Qatar GP will be the sixth and last of the season with a short race and the only free test round was the moment in which everyone had to test race pace, qualifying simulation, height adjustment… Everything was tight and, furthermore, complicated because the track was dirty at the beginning, even though Formula 2 had already turned. ANDIn that single round, Franco Colapinto came last.
The 20 drivers began training on hard tires. The Argentine had started with a slower pace than his teammate Pierre Gasly, but at the end of the stint with the white compound he gained one tenth. When it came time for the qualifying simulation, the Frenchman gained a bigger lead.
On the radio, the Alpine team told Colapinto that the lap times were lower than in 2025 and that the tracks had more grip. In the first attempt with soft tires, the Argentine had lost almost four tenths with respect to Gasly and, to make matters worse, he suffered a mistake in the third sector and had to abort the lap. The mistake of the former Williams driver served to add to the long list of runners who were outside the limits in the only test.
ANDThe passage through the highway left some damage to the bottom of the Colapinto A525who finally failed to complete any good lap with the soft tires and came last, with 1m23s529, 1s105 behind Gasly, who placed 18th. The Frenchman also went off track on his second attempt with soft tires and had to abort a lap in which he had improved the first two sectors.
The next outing on the track for Colapinto will be the sprint qualification, in which everyone will have to run on medium tires in SQ1 and SQ2, a compound that no one tested.
