Franco Colapinto feels proud of Alpine’s performance so far in 2026, but he is still wary of how the car will adapt to new tracks as they arrive at the F1 Japanese GP.
A few weeks ago, Colapinto scored his first points for Alpine during the F1 2026 Chinese GP. The Argentine driver and his teammate Pierre Gasly managed to reach the top 10, finishing P10 and P6 respectively.
Ahead of the 2026 F1 Japanese GP, Colapinto took part in the FIA press conference, where he was asked about the team’s outlook for the upcoming weekend.
Colapinto on how happy Alpine is with the results so far
When congratulated and asked about how the felt after his performance during his first visit to the Shanghai International Circuit, Colapinto said:
“It was good. I’ve been looking for those points for a long time and it was really positive for me and for the team to have a double points finish, again, after a very long time also, so it’s good.”
Still, the young driver spoke about his run of bad luck in the last race. A safety car hampered him badly. Running in P6 on the hard compound, he could not pit like the vast majority of the field.
“Of course, we were looking for more and it was looking really positive at the start of the race. We were running fifth and sixth.
“It looked like we could score a whole lot more points and of course the Safety Car kind of damaged our race, mine and Pierre’s as well. Mine, because of the strategy, was much worse.
“But it was still positive to see the performance, to see that we could fight at the front and that we could be out there with the big teams.”
Overall, Colapinto was glad to see the team happy after Alpine’s first double points since Brazil 2024.
“I think generally, it was a really positive weekend in China. Coming from Melbourne, it was a big step forward and that was of course really positive and motivated a lot of people in the factory.
“You could see [at Enstone] I went a couple of days ago, everyone was looking really positive, happy and motivated, wanting more, and that’s what we want to see. So yes, good weekend.”
The A526 has been greatly upgraded from last year’s Alpine
Franco Colapinto was also asked about how much happier he is with the 2026 Alpine car in comparison to last year’s.
“I’m happier, of course. When you can fight a bit further up it makes you feel more confident, makes you give that extra little bit in different situations.”
“I think when you are so close to Q3, when you’re in the fight, it is different. Last year, unfortunately we didn’t have that.”
“This year it’s looking much better and of course the car did steps and it’s looking much closer to the other teams.”
The Argentine driver is optimistic about the possibility of working and enhancing the car even further.
“I think also knowing that we have a lot of performance coming, or that we see many different things to improve, it’s also really positive. When you are up there and you know that you’ve got many things to fix and to improve, it’s even better.”
“So, I think looking forward to this year, it’s feeling more competitive and that makes you happier, and of course, we want to be fighting for points consistently, which is what we are looking for and trying to aim at.”
Colapinto is still cautious ahead of F1 2026 Japanese GP
As the F1 season arrives at its next stop in Suzuka, hopes are for Alpine to match its result in the last races. Yet, Colapinto spoke carefully on whether he felt he could achieve a similar score: “Yeah, we’ll see.”
“I think it’s another new weekend, new track, very different on energy, on kind of corners, very long, very high speed, so it’s going to be really different.”
“I think still we need to understand our biggest weaknesses and where we are still needing to work more. China was a really different track to this one, so we need to see.”
“But I think generally it’s new for everyone. No one really knows where it’s going to be and we need to wait until tomorrow.”
