“Tough” first races left Franco Colapinto feeling “out of phase” with Alpine F1 car

Franco Colapinto says he has felt “out of phase” with his car over his first three races with Alpine, but hopes that work in the factory can yield a breakthrough at Formula 1’s Canadian Grand Prix.

Colapinto was brought in the line-up to replace Jack Doohan after just six races and has yet to show he is bringing any improvement over the demoted Australian.

He suffered a crash in qualifying at Imola and was then generally off the pace in Monaco and Barcelona. Acting team boss Flavio Briatore said he would continue evaluating the Argentinian’s performance race by race as he mulls over the identity of Pierre Gasly’s 2026 team-mate.

While a mid-season debut was always going to be tough, Colapinto’s flying start to his nine-race 2024 cameo at Williams raised expectations of him quickly adapting to the Alpine, but by his own admission his second F1 stint has not gone to plan.

“They were tough,” he reflected on a brutal May triple-header on Thursday in Montreal. “They were not, of course, as I was expecting.

“I was expecting to make a bit more progress after Imola, but it’s always tough to get back into F1 after six races of not being there. The drivers learned a lot, tyre management, and when you are not driving it’s really tricky.”

Comparing his two stints at Williams and Alpine so far, he explained: “It’s very different. When I came into Williams last year, I had never driven another Formula 1 car, so I couldn’t really compare it to anything else, whereas now I have got that.

“At Alpine I’m learning a lot. There are many good things, there are some things that are different.

“The car is very different to drive as well, and it’s just getting up to speed with that and trying to understand what’s the quickest way around it.”

After qualifying 19th and finishing 15th in Spain, Colapinto feels he and the team have uncovered some more clues as to why he hasn’t clicked with its 2025 car yet, and there is some optimism that he can turn the corner in Canada this weekend after working at team’s Enstone factory to find solutions to him feeling “out of phase” with his machine.

“This week off was really good to get together with the team and understand the issues, understand what we have to do better, where we were lacking some pace and where I can improve as well,” he explained.

“I spent a lot of days in the sim, a lot of days in the factory with the engineers. We worked on many things. Just generally there are some things setup-wise that have not been working for me.

“I felt very much almost out of phase with everything – with the tools in the car, with the set-up. One thing was fighting the other one. Once we understood that after the race in Barcelona, it made much more sense to me.

“I think here, I arrive with a bit more confidence. We need that step, so hopefully we can do it here.”