Franco Colapinto took over the second Alpine seat from Jack Doohan after just six races into the 2025 F1 season. The Argentine, however, has failed to any impact on the team’s points tally since. The F1 Qatar GP was another addition to his point-less run. Colapinto, though, claims the team has learned quite a bit about the car and hopes to see them carry over to their 2026 car.
Colapinto rues a ‘boring’ F1 Qatar GP for Alpine strategists
Alpine’s poor run never looked to take a transformational turn during the Qatar GP weekend. Despite that, a resilient Pierre Gasly carried himself to P9 on the starting grid, but early damage during the race saw him finish outside the points-scoring positions.
Colapinto had a gloomier weekend. He qualified last, and the team took this opportunity to make some setup changes and start his race from the pitlane. While he managed to lift himself to P14 to the chequered flag, the lack of grip continued to bother him throughout the race.
The intention to run a long stint on hard tyres was neutralised with a seventh lap pit stop behind the safety car. Two predictable remaining stints on medium tyres robbed him of any element of surprise against the opponents. Colapinto dubbed it a ‘boring’ race for his strategists.
“Yeah, the strategists were a bit bored this race I think. There wasn’t a lot to do with that safety car so early on. It just made the race very similar for everyone. I think just not quite the pace as we were expecting. I couldn’t find the grip today, again with a few changes, but I was really struggling with the car,” Colapinto said in his post-F1 Qatar GP print media interaction.
“Yesterday I did a pretty poor job, and I was really unhappy with my quali. I think lots to learn, but it was not a good session from my side, and I was quite annoyed. Today was a better day, but I still really struggled for pace, for grip, sliding a lot, using the tyres too much. We need to understand and look at that last stint, especially that I felt far off the pace.”
Colapinto dubs 2025 F1 Qatar GP a learning experience for 2026
Despite a boring race and no points, Colapinto believes Alpine has had many takeaways from the Qatar GP. Summing up his season, he felt he had a “much better” run right after the summer break. However, that too took a dip towards the end of the season. While there are things for the team to learn about the car, his deteriorating form is another mystery they need to understand during the off-season.
“I think we learned a lot of stuff because we did a lot of changes, many more than our weekends. We started twice from the pitlane (Qatar Sprint and Main Race) and that made us learn things. On my side, I think there are still quite a few things to improve from this weekend and try to learn for next year. It’s a good preparation, taking these last weekends to understand more things.
“I have been struggling at the end of the year now. It’s not been easy. I found myself much better just after the summer break and those seven, eight, nine races, and then it started to become difficult again. We need to understand why and not get the same as last year,” Colapinto concluded.
