Speaking at the F1 Hungarian GP, Franco Colapinto opened up about the challenges he’s faced with the A525 and the specific areas where he feels his confidence is lacking.
The Argentine first made his mark in F1 as Williams’ “super sub” during the second half of the 2024 season, stepping in for Logan Sargeant and impressing enough to earn a contract with Alpine under Flavio Briatore’s management. Initially brought in as a reserve driver, Colapinto was promoted to a race seat alongside Pierre Gasly at Imola, just seven races into the season in lieu of underperforming rookie Jack Doohan.
Though Colapinto has shown flashes of promise, his own campaign hasn’t been without struggle. He has generally been unable to replicate the form he presented during his short stint with Williams, as the A525 has proven to be a trickier car to drive. The team’s entire points haul so far has come courtesy of Gasly.
Colapinto’s latest qualifying effort, lining up 14th for the Hungarian GP, was overshadowed by the car’s lack of race pace, leaving the Alpine duo finishing in the bottom two positions despite their solid individual performances. Colapinto faced another setback during his outing at the Pirelli 2026 Formula 1 tyre test conducted post-race at the Hungaroring where he crashed heavily at Turn 11.
Colapinto candid about his lack of confidence in the A525
In Hungary, Colapinto spoke candidly about his lack of confidence in the car, identifying the areas that still need work.
“I said since the start that I’m lacking confidence with the car, and that I’m not finding, sometimes, my feet in some corners,” he told the media ahead of the Hungarian GP.
“I’m struggling to be able to turn in and to come into the corners and that’s just not really giving me much confidence. I didn’t have this issue last year, I could go straight in and be quick straight away, it was straight forward.
“Now I’m struggling a bit more with that and that’s the reality. I don’t have the confidence as I had maybe last year and that’s a bit costly in F1.
“(…) I think, generally the car is a bit tricky on entries, and that’s what we are working on, on my side.”
Alpine needs more “perfect” weekends to maximise package
Colapinto also pointed to a broader issue with execution across race weekends, as he has been hampered by strategy blunders and slow stops.
“It’s still I think this thing of not maximising the weekend as a whole, and we are not nailing everything in every single session, and that’s what I feel that we really need to improve,” he explained.
“I don’t feel on a weekend that I would say everything has been perfect on my side, or on the strategy side, or on the setup side, it’s always been something that we could have done better, and that’s I think just part of the process as well. But it’s something we need to keep improving, and part of the confidence that I sometimes lack. I think it’s something we are getting a little bit better at now.”
He continued: “We’ve been working hard with the team to understand some of the issues and I do believe that we’ve been getting better at some things.
“But it’s just that feeling that nothing has been connected or put back together and that package that we have, it’s been maximised at times, but not in some other times.
“I feel there is progress that is being done behind the scenes, it’s just that when you don’t see it in results, it’s very tricky to keep pushing, to keep working in the same direction because you don’t actually see the results happening.
“It’s something that you can’t really rely on when you don’t see it on track. But I do believe that we’ve been getting better in many areas and that we are still working very well with the team. It’s going to come, but it’s just taking longer than what I would like.”
Colapinto intends to use the summer break to “keep learning”
Colapinto admitted that he felt most at ease with the Alpine during his debut outing at the Emilia Romagna GP, when he first stepped in for Doohan.
“I do believe that it’s there, and that the car can do it, and that it can be as I want, so we are working hard. When I [think] back to Imola, before the front wing change and all these things, it was where I felt best. So, we are just working to try and understand that, I think once we do it, everything is going to get easier.”
The Argentine driver is determined to continue learning and working throughout August, putting the summer shutdown to good use.
“My season has been a bit shorter so far,” he said. “So I need to keep working and when you are not really comfortable with the performance, I think you just need to keep pushing and keep going.
“Of course you need time to reset, but you need to use the free time to try to keep learning and understanding what you need to get better at.
“So, we will of course keep pushing forward and try to come back from the summer break stronger than what we left.”
