SAN PABLO.- How do we judge this race? Franco Colapinto What about the Sanpablo Grand Prix? Is it because of the result? He started 16th and finished 15th after qualifying 18th. nothing to be excited about. Is it because of the quality of the car? He was injured in a sprint race accident on Saturday and was in worse condition than his teammate’s accident. Pierre Gasly It was intact and could not offer the same. Or does he do it because of the quality of his handling, affected by two sets of tires that did not give the expected results for either his car or Gasly?
After the joy of being named Alpine’s starting driver for 2026, his hopes for the weekend were ended after a crash that destroyed his car in Saturday’s short race.
The apparent progress expected here was cut short on Sunday, Franco He ran as hard as he could and did it.However, he himself sarcastically expressed his dissatisfaction before the press and began to ask himself questions similar to those posed at the beginning of this text.
What was the positive thing about this weekend?
“I think the audience felt the same way, and so did the fans who were there,” he said with a sarcastic smile, making a pretty good judgment on the outcome. And he launched:
“It wasn’t a good weekend and I’m obviously not very happy. It was a long race without much pace. It was bad, there was no grip and I think that complicated the race. We followed the same strategy as everyone before us. We didn’t do anything different and I think that led to the same positions as usual.”
British race winner land norrisMcLaren took a big step towards winning the event in 2025 after main rival and teammate Oscar Piastri finished fifth, but received a 10-second penalty for collision with second-placed Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes). Max Verstappen achieved another feat from the pit lane. He stopped three times, avoided crashes on the start and restart, and finally finished third in a Red Bull that had “found its way”.
Full of Interlagos atmosphere
The day started with the usual anticipation and local color.
Grand Prix Sunday at Interlagos. There was already chaos by the time we arrived on Saturday, and today, Sunday, there was chaos even from 8am. More than 1,000 buses blocked all access to the circuit. Thousands of enthusiastic Argentines got out of their cars two kilometers from the entrance gate. It was drizzling. Opportunists were on the sidelines because there was a good market, and the thin layer of protective nylon was snatched out of their hands. There was haggling. The team’s T-shirts and caps were the same as the official ones, but they were authentically “mass.”
Light rain was expected until midday, but the rain did not fall at race time. Similarly, persistent winds were rapidly drying the circuit.
From early in the morning, the very narrow streets of the paddock were filled with VIPs, journalists and some “colleagues”. The excellent quality tropical fruit stall given to attendees could no longer accommodate. A favorite product is a giant green coconut the size of a helmet, with a hole cut in it for sipping the sweet nectar it contains. That’s what F1 is today: a basketful of hedonistic and sometimes exotic experiences.
At 9:40 a.m. on Sunday, Franco sat down to breakfast at a four-person table just steps from the closed-to-access door to Alpine Hospitality. Dressed in impeccable dark suits, the watchful bodyguards stood six feet tall with an intimidating demeanor, intended to block the view of the most curious VIPs heading into the venue.
Franco was accompanied by his mother, sister, and managers Maria and Jamie Campbell Walter. There was a moment when his engineer, Stuart Barlow, approached him and spoke into his ear. Although discretion was guaranteed over the technical details of the car’s final preparation, the regulatory constraints of the ‘park close’ regime meant that aerodynamic regulations could not be exceeded.
Red Bull decided to break the ‘parc fermé’ to change the set-up of Verstappen’s car and accept Verstappen starting from the pit lane, but Alpine ruled out that idea for Franco. As engineers explained their decision, people close to the team said: “The components we were able to install are worthless because they show no improvement. They are second-hand and not the best.”
Barlow informed the Argentine that he would be moving up one place on the starting grid as Esteban Ocon (Haas), who had qualified 17th on Saturday, was scheduled to start from pit road in addition to Max Verstappen.
A few hours into qualifying, telemetry and radios from several teams could be reviewed, revealing more details about the three accidents involving Colapinto that occurred on the sixth lap of the “Sprint” race. It turns out that Verstappen also stepped on that piano and managed to avoid whiplash. Mr. Piastri agreed with Mr. Colapinto and said he traveled there without incident. Until the moment of the accident.
surviving chaos
After the usual ceremony we had to think about the race. At one point, it looked like he might be able to surprise his rivals Pierre Gasly, Oliver Bearman (Haas), Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls), and the Aston Martin of Franco and Lance Stroll, who started from 14th, with just one stop. On pure pace, it will be impossible for Colapinto’s No. 43 car to withstand the attacks of Max Verstappen (Red Bull) and Esteban Ocon (Haas). The two agreed to give up their starting positions of 16th and 17th respectively, make engine and set-up changes, and start from the pit lane. In doing so, they could gain even more.
Colapinto gained one position on the first lap as Carlos Sainz forced Lewis Hamilton off the track, ruining the Ferrari driver’s race.
Luckily for Franco, Hamilton, trying to regain ground, crashed into him from behind, destroying the Ferrari’s front wing but not affecting the Argentine. In the same round, Gabriel Bortleto made contact with Lance Stroll and was eliminated as each car squeezed too much space.
The safety car lasted four laps to remove debris from the disappointed Brazilian’s car. Restarting from 4th, Oscar Piastri (McLaren) collided with Kimi Antonelli while trying to overtake him on the inside. The Italian collided with Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, leaving it abandoned with broken wheels and suspension.
Franco also survived the chaos and had a long battle for the rest of the race with the a priori cars of Lance Stroll, Yuki Tsunoda and Fernando Alonso, who tended to be quite fast. I could endure their pace. Franco was able to extend the duration of his medium shoe to the 29th round, temporarily moving him up to 8th place. The tires should have lasted longer to hope for a stop.
The same thing happened to all teams that switched to a two-stop strategy. The situation did not improve with the soft rubber match. He made his second stop in race 43, and two laps later he recorded a time of 1 minute 12 seconds 16/100. This was to be the fifth absolute time of the race. He thus held out until the end, managing to resist the attacks of Lance Stroll, who had much younger shoes than him, but was unable to prevent Alonso from overtaking him.
Franco added in his remarks at the end of the race:
“I could have tried something a little more risky (stops) and see what would happen, but, well, the degradation (tire wear) on the car wasn’t good either. It was a hard day and nothing matters, we have to look at the whole weekend at the factory.”
There is little time left to draw conclusions, and the next Grand Prix will be held on the streets of Las Vegas, an environment that is not necessarily favorable to Alpine’s characteristics.
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