One step away from the top 5
Franco Colapinto’s performance in Formula 1 is steadily improving, who after a less convincing start to the season achieved his best personal result in the last Canadian Grand Prix. After the 7th place obtained in Miami, the Argentine driver brought his Alpine to sixth position, completing a weekend in which the 22-year-old also came close to the points zone during the Sprint race.
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Risks were not lacking
A generally positive performance for the South American, who commented on his performance at the Montreal circuit: “From the point where we started the weekend to the double points finish for the team, it is a great result and a fantastic reward for everyone who worked hard. I am very proud of the work we have done collectively and it is a great team result today. It is also my best result in Formula 1, which makes me very happy and is based on the performance we showed in Miami. We know we benefited from others’ misfortune, and it is never a nice feeling to take advantage of others’ problems, but we maximized everything possible and brought the car home. There was very little grip and the track was slippery, especially at the start in the first laps with a harder tire compound compared to those around us. I also got scared coming out of the pits after my pit stop, where I hit a wet patch, then went onto the white line and skidded towards the wall. Fortunately, I hit it sideways and got away with minor damage that did not require repairs nor affect performance. As we know, there is still more we need to do to be more competitive, improve the car’s performance and get closer to those ahead of us on merit.”
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Positive weekend for Alpine
For Alpine, as mentioned by Colapinto, the Canadian weekend ended with both of its drivers in the points zone, for the second time after the Chinese GP. In that case, it was Pierre Gasly who finished ahead of his teammate, with the final classification this time favoring the Argentine, two positions ahead of the Frenchman, 8th but proud of the work done with the team: “Overall, it is a great team result and important points for the Championship – he said – for me, it was a result that limited the damage, allowing us to recover from a difficult weekend and reach this point with an eighth place, staying in the points zone. In general, however, I had problems with the car again and, as a team, we need to understand why and try to solve some problems. There is a lot of work to do to bring the car back to a good level and this is our goal from now until Monaco. Regarding the race, we had a difficult start with the medium tires, which were quite cold and had little grip at the beginning, but in the end we managed to recover some positions and then fight with Liam [Lawson] at the end. It was difficult to find a point to overtake him and we did not succeed, so we had to settle for eighth place. Now I look forward to racing in Monaco. It is my favorite circuit of the year, so I hope we can solve some of these problems and arrive there with more confidence and better performance.”
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