Franco Colapinto squeezed everything he could and will start 15th in Japan

The Alpine driver crossed the Q1 barrier just enough, he improved his times in each start, but he was far from moving on to the third segment in Suzuka, home of the third F1 round.

The Friday that Franco Colapinto himself described as complicated, continued on Saturday in Japan. The Argentine’s Alpine could not be controlled, as he did not feel comfortable with the A526 in the first two days of the third round of the season. In qualifying he continued to suffer with his balance and finished 15th, after barely passing the Q1 cutoff.

“The rear part is terrible. Huge understeer and oversteer,” was the last message that the Argentine driver told Stuart Barlow, his track engineer. On Friday, during training, he suffered from the lack of aerodynamic load on the front axle, a situation that the Alpines had already experienced in the fast parts of Australia on the first date. In China, with many low speed sectors, the situation was not felt, but it returned in the fast Suzuka. The Alpine and Colapinto engineers worked on Saturday and improved the front part, but they began to suffer with the rearsomething strange considering that precisely the main update that the Enstone team brought to Japan was the new rear wing.

Colapinto struggled a lot to be able to pass the first qualifying cut and there are four of the 22 F1 cars that these days almost belong to another category: the two Cadillacs and the two Aston Martins. The Argentine’s duel was planned with the Williams duo to win the last ticket to Q2. In the first Q1 attempt, the Buenos Aires native clocked 1m31s458 against 1m30s765 from his teammate Pierre Gasly. The gap between the Argentine and the Frenchman was in the order of seven tenths in each outing on the track. In the second attempt, the ex-Williams set the clock at 1m30s931 and was enough to pass Alex Albon’s Williams, but not Carlos Sainz’s, who took water out of the stones to be 15th. The one who broke the game was Oliver Bearman, who had a very poor performance and finished 18th. Finally, the possible objective that Colapinto had in the previous qualifying was achieved: move to Q2. That final lap of Q1 was the moment he was closest to Gasly: ​​412 thousandths.

Already dreaming of moving to Q3 was a utopia. His times throughout the weekend did not put him on the board of candidates, but not Gasly, who clearly felt much more comfortable with the Alpine and continues to demonstrate that he is among the best Formula 1 drivers and that his results have not been better in recent times due to the weakness of the car. But his task in 2025, adding 22 points with the very poor A525 was the demonstration. In Q2, Colapinto improved his time again on the first attempt, an important point, he was always improving his times in each start. For the first time this weekend he managed to go under 91 seconds by clocking 1m30s877, against the Frenchman’s 1m30s122. Colapinto was ahead of Liam Lawson and Sainz after the first Q2 start. In the final attempt, the Buenos Aires native improved again: 1m30s627, but that was as far as he went. He finished 15th and only surpassed Sainz, with whom he will share the eighth starting row. Once again he will experience a duel with the Spanish, as happened in Australia (the Argentine was ahead) and in China (the Spanish was the winner). Meanwhile, Gasly, in another story, got into Q3 with 1m30s122. Franco was 755 thousandths away from that record, the difference of the entire weekend between the Alpine drivers.

Colapinto seemed frustrated when speaking to the media, including AM850. “Hopefully the race pace will be a little better. In qualy this weekend we were not good. Yesterday it was difficult for me due to a problem at the front, today that was better, but I am still far away. Q1 was good, but in Q2 I lacked a lot, we have to work for tomorrow (Sunday). Yesterday I had several problems in the first practice, but the race pace is better than in qualy. I will try to have a good start, a good race and move forward. Hopefully the race pace will be better. Sunday,” it was hoped.

Closing the race in Japan well will be the objective that Franco will want to achieve before entering the long break of five weeks without competitions due to the suspension of the events in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Going through Suzuka, a route I didn’t know, was complicated until now.