Franco Colapinto lived a difficult Sunday in the GP of Spain

The Argentine had no rhythm with his Alpine in Barcelona and ended 15º on the ninth date of F1. Thus he closed the consecutive triplet from his return to the category.

Very hard weekend Franco Colapint lived in the GP of Spain, ninth date of the 76th Formula 1 season. Beyond the accidents of Brazil and Las Vegas, it was, perhaps, the most complicated competition that had to live the Argentine joining his nine races with Williams with the three of Alpine. The combo included technical problems in its A525, inconveniences to find the balance, a moment of illusion in the classification and the climax was the lack of rhythm for most of the 66 laps that the race lasted.

The arrival at a conventional layout such as Montmeló, after running between walls in Monaco, invited the Argentine pilot to think more comfortably the limit of his alpine and start entering more in the rhythm granted by the car, which, clearly, is far from the pointer cars. But it all started crooked on Friday at the first training session, when a hydraulic leak prevented him from participating in the last 15 minutes of batch. The closure of the first day of activity left Collapint frustrated due to the lack of balance and speed. His times were far from his partner Pierre Gasly.

Saturday was the only moment of the whole weekend in which he felt comfortable. So much that in the classification everything was given to go to Q2 and even had a better time than the French before the final attempt. But a fault in the transmission of the car left him lying and without chances of being able to look for that final turn that could take the step to the next stage of the qualy. However, his feelings, overshadowed by logic frustration, were good.

All of that disappeared in the race. There were 66 tortuous laps for the Argentine, who failed to have consistency in his return times. He had three second differences in consecutive turns. After starting with soft roofs, it passed halfway and the worst moment of Franco’s career came. I found no rhythm and could not approach the lot that had ahead. In fact, every pilot who stopped in boxes and was behind him, like Carlos Sainz and Yuki Tsunoda, to give a couple of examples, quickly surpassed him and escaped.

When he returned to soft tires on the 41st round, with little fuel load already, his best pace was seen. He achieved his best return in the race in turn 42, but the damage was already done. Only the leaving the security car for the abandonment of Kimi Antonelli changed the panorama of the last handful of turns. Alpine called him back to Boxes, he cut another soft set and ended up advancing a track position to overcome Esteban Ocon and, after the flag of paintings, climbed another step for the penalty of 10 seconds that Oliver Bearman suffered for taking advantage when he went outside the track.

Colapinto finished 15th on track with a car that was not well balanced and became a headache. In fact, at the end of the competition, the engineer left him on the radio a clear message that you have to work to find an answer when walking. The team is far, beyond the eighth place that Gasly took, favored by the penalty that fell on Max Verstappen. They will have a lot of work in Estone during the next two weeks left for the next race, which will be played in Canada. Flavio Briatore said before in Barcelona that he did not know if Colapinto would be until the end of the year, that it depended on his performance and that the Spanish career was the first to analyze deeply. The Argentine had a difficult Sunday, with a car that did not give him the chance of at least having consistency.