Franco Colapinto will start the Qatar sprint from the back

The Argentine was 20th in the classification of the short race on the penultimate F1 date.

Franco Colapinto’s dream of having a good run in Qatar did not take long to collide head-on with reality. The Argentine’s hope was based on Alpine’s good passage through Lusail in 2024, however, none of that was repeated on the first day of activity of the penultimate date of Formula 1 in 2025: the Buenos Aires native was last in the classification for the sprint that will be held this Saturday.

That good performance by Enstone last year (endorsed by Pierre Gasly’s fifth place in the main race) came at the moment when the French car was fully lifted. Since then, the team led by Flavio Briatore decided not to make updates to the cars to work on the new 2026 regulations. and this season’s A525 is almost the same car as a year ago. The rest, on the other hand, continued to use their current machines and the team that belongs to Renault was the weakest on the grid. And Qatar was another example.

The only Qatari training session left the Alpines in 18th and 20th place, with Gasly ahead. In qualifying for the sprint the scenario was repeated, because Franco was last and the Frenchman was just one place ahead. Thus, the duo from the Enstone-based team will occupy the last row starting point for the short competition on Saturday.

Regarding the particular task of Colapinto, he was seen slow and disconnected from the rest. In training he suffered a mistake in the third sector during his attempt launched with soft tires and was unable to close a fast turn. In any case, in the first two sets he had lost four tenths with Gasly. Already in qualifying, Franco clocked 1m22s364 and was 252 thousandths behind Gasly and 1s192 behind Fernando Alonso, the fastest in the first session, in which everyone had to turn with only one set of middle tires.

That oversight in the test took its toll on the Colapinto A525 with damage to the floor. The mechanics had to make repairs and the Argentine was faced with a lack of grip, a big cost on a circuit with medium and high speed curves. In any case, that previous illusion of a good performance, which had even led him to think about the possibility of scoring for the first time in the season, collapsed only on the first day. The short race is ahead, an ideal time for Franco to carry out tests with Sunday in mind. It seems difficult for performance to magically appear in the A525 to have a better classification on Sunday. Without a doubt, paraphrasing Fernando Alonso’s sayings in Las Vegas, the best thing that the end of the year will bring for Alpine will be that the A525 will no longer be used. In the case of the English team, it was due to the wrong development path. Instead, Alpine went by his own decision.