Franco Colapinto nearly reached the top 10, but missed out by 0.005 seconds to Isaak Hadjar, and finally finished P12 at the 2026 F1 Chinese GP Qualifying.
During his first weekend in the Shanghai International Circuit, Colapinto has been struggling to match his teammate Pierre Gasly’s pace. While Gasly has been a regular appearance inside the top 10, finishing P7 in both Sprint Qualifying and Qualifying, Colapinto ended up P16 and P12, respectively.
The Argentine driver set a best lap of 1:33.357 in Q2, which placed him behind Nico Hulkenberg in P11 and Liam Lawson in P14.
When asked about missing out on Q3 by 0.005s after the session, Colapinto answered:
“Yeah, it’s really annoying. I think when you found that you can’t find that anywhere in the lap. And that’s what makes it more annoying.”
Nonetheless, once the 2026 F1 Chinese GP Qualifying was finished, Colapinto received an unexpected warm hug from team principal Flavio Briatore and a pat on the back from his team.
Franco Colapinto praises Alpine for improving the car for 2026 F1 Chinese GP Qualifying
Even though the young driver was not happy with his qualifying performance, he gratefully highlighted the mechanics and engineers’ work to help him improve after FP1 and Sprint Qualifying, where he felt he struggled. Colapinto had voiced some concerns about his pace and the gap between his car and Gasly’s.
“The performance today was much better, the car was in a much better place. I’m really grateful to the team for the effort yesterday, because we were struggling a lot for performance and the team helped me to find that. They understood that we were having some clear issues.
“They managed to find that error, differences across cars.
“Today I really would try between sessions to understand it, to bring the car in a much better place. Even though we are still lacking a little bit, in the rear axle we lack some downforce. I think it’s generally much better.
“I’m just grateful for the effort that they’ve done. They helped me to understand what I couldn’t understand in data.
“Today the car was very different to drive, but it was much quicker, much more consistent. It has more downforce and that’s always a big benefit.
“It’s important to understand why when it goes bad and when we are not quick enough. It’s really important to understand when it doesn’t go as you want. And the team did that. It’s been a positive weekend so far.”
Colapinto on his outlook for the upcoming race on Sunday
Franco Colapinto seems to be hopeful for the A526 performance in the 2026 F1 Chinese GP.
“Tomorrow we will fight hard to score points.”
He also discussed some minor mistakes he made during the qualifying session.
“Today we were very close with Q3. You can find that anywhere. We clipped a lot out of the last corner, we clipped a lot in a few places. Here and there was a really poor out that we left behind. Things improved in general, but yeah, in a better place than yesterday. So that’s positive.”
Finally, Colapinto was asked about graining and whether the changes made to the car would help protect the tyres:
“Yeah, of course, we did a few changes on the car to improve all that. That’s been going in the right direction. We don’t need to make a big effort now or tomorrow to improve those issues that we have in the car.”
