Franco Colapinto: “Soon we will be stronger”

The Argentine analyzed his time in Australia, regretted the penalty he received and hoped for a better one at Alpine.

Franco Colapinto, like everyone in Alpine, arrived in Australia with high hopes. The long-awaited 2026 finally arrived and, with that, the new technical regulations for which the Enstone team made the big bet. The objective was to fight to get into the points zone with both cars, However, the A526 did not show the firmness that it had outlined in the preseason tests and the prize was a point from Pierre Gasly and 14th place for the Argentine.

The former Williams driver’s career was compromised by an Alpine error. A team mechanic touched his car when the closed period for approaching was already over and that turned into a very harsh sanction: stop and go, the harshest penalty before exclusion. After that, the Argentine’s race was reduced to turning, at times with a very high pace due to tire wear, and hoping that the weakness shown by several teams in the reliability of the new regulations would bring him closer to something more.

“A shame, I think the team touched the car with 15 seconds to go, I didn’t quite understand what happened,” Colapinto explained in the corralito after the race and without having spoken to anyone from the team at that time.either. “There are things to work on, to improve. The pace was a little better, in the race I was fighting a little more. Luckily I finished the competition, it was very long, I could have been left stranded at the start with Laswon,” said the Alpine driver in reference to the shocking maneuver in which he avoided the New Zealander from Racing Bulls.

“I hope to have a little more performance in the future to fight later. In race pace I was a little better than in qualifying, closer to Haas and Audi. But I need to understand more the energy in qualifying and how the car works with little gas. I think we will soon be stronger. “You have to understand how everything is going to work, it was a learning weekend, but it was very complicated,” explained Colapinto, who reached 27 races in F1 and surpassed Froilán González by one and became the third Argentine with the most participations in F1.

In five days, Colapinto will be touring in Shanghai, home of the second date of the World Cup. “I hope that in China we are better. We have to fight further ahead, it is not where we want to be. Complicated weekend, we are sure to take a leap soon. If we improve the pace of qualifying we are going to take a small step,” he concluded.