Franco Colapinto has said that Alpine needs to understand its F1 car better if the team wants to improve following a tricky start to the year for them.
Speaking in a print media session at the F1 British GP, he stated that the team is putting its focus into finding more pace on Fridays to achieve a more positive start to race weekends.
Colapinto: Taken “a step forward” since the F1 Canadian GP
It’s no secret that Colapinto has generally struggled to find his feet since stepping in for Jack Doohan at the F1 Emilia-Romagna GP, with the Argentinian failing to score points in any of the six races he’s participated in.
Despite his struggles, Colapinto has said that the car has felt better for him since Canada, though the team is still trying to resolve its “nervousness”. His qualifying and race performance in Montreal certainly showed that.
“Of course we are still fighting against it,” he said. “I think generally we’ve been doing a step forward.
“Already from Canada it’s been feeling much better. But I think especially on Fridays is the focus. We need to try and understand how to bring the performance already on Fridays because then it’s a lot of time we are trying to find from Friday to Saturday.”
The Argentinian identified FP1 and FP2 as the area holding the team back, with a lack of predictability making it hard for the team to understand where the car is the most balanced.
“You kind of miss the little details, those little improvements that you normally do as soon as they don’t come because you are focusing on big things. So I think in general race pace has been very strong since FP1. We need to try to make the car a bit more predictable.”
He continued: “We know our weakness is the car is quick when it’s in the window. As soon as it goes out of that it becomes quite tricky to drive. Pierre [Gasly] has similar issues but of course after he’s been driving the car for four years it’s very easy to kind of understand where the limit is.”
Colapinto: “The car is quick” but more needs to be done
Colapinto’s teammate, Pierre Gasly, is currently responsible for all of Alpine’s 19 points, with the team currently sitting last in the F1 constructors’ championship. Eight of those were thanks to Gasly’s P6 finish at the British GP – but Colapinto did not finish the race after he stalled his car in the pit lane.
Despite these issues, Colapinto seemed assured of the car’s pace, but stated that the team has a lot more work to do to be able to understand it.
“I think generally the car is quick. That’s the main thing. We need to try to extract all the performance that we can do every time.
“That’s our main issue at the moment. I think there is also some things we need to improve as a team. We just need to find more performance of the car.
“We need to try to keep working together to make that car more predictable, a bit easier to drive for us both drivers.”
When asked if his lack of pace in FP1 and FP2 is a result of being too cautious of damaging the car, Colapinto responded:
“I think if you look at Canada I’ve been spinning like crazy on Friday. It’s probably not the easiest part we are doing. I’m still doing mistakes on Friday and I think that’s what you need to do. You need to find the limit.
“There is something we are finding from Friday to Saturday every time. Of putting the car a little bit more like I want. Of also probably a bit of driving. There is driving, there is also setup. And we are putting everything together and everything comes much more connected for Saturday.”
Colapinto: Alpine must focus more on Friday pace
Colapinto stressed the importance of starting the weekend in a good position – something Alpine is failing to do at the moment, with Friday pace falling behind the rest of the weekend.
Speaking about finding the right balance for the car, Colapinto said:
“That is not really happening earlier in the weekend. I think that comes with experience with the car. It comes with knowing exactly what you want.
“How to maximise the performance very quickly on the weekend. It’s what I’m not doing and I think that’s purely for not knowing the car. Last year was probably a bit easier for me.”
He continued: “But this year I’m struggling with that confidence on all those entries, with that instability, with that feeling of nervousness. And just feeling that the car is not as well connected.
“It makes me not have the confidence that I need early in the weekend. That’s just coming with a bit more time. We are trying to put our focus on Fridays.
“I think it’s very important to start Fridays better. And when that happens it’s going to make our life much easier for the rest of the weekend. It’s clear I think that we are doing a good work from Friday to Saturday, where we find a lot of performance. But if that would come earlier it would just make our weekend better.”
