Franco Colapinto secures career-best F1 finish as Alpine celebrates double points in Canada
Franco Colapinto’s progress in Formula 1 continues to gather momentum. After a difficult and somewhat underwhelming start to the season, the Argentine driver delivered the strongest result of his F1 career at the Canadian Grand Prix, finishing sixth for Alpine after already impressing with seventh place in Miami.
The 22-year-old completed an encouraging weekend in Montreal, having also come close to scoring points in the Sprint race, further underlining the progress he has been making in recent rounds.
A strong result despite the risks
Overall, it was a highly positive performance for the South American driver, who reflected on his race at the Gilles Villeneuve Circuit with understandable satisfaction:
“From where we started the weekend to achieving a double points finish for the team, it’s a fantastic result and a great reward for everyone who worked so hard. I’m very proud of the work we did collectively, and it’s a really strong team result today.
“It’s also my best result in Formula 1, which makes me very happy, and it builds on the performance we showed in Miami. We know we benefited from other people’s misfortune, and it’s never a great feeling to gain from someone else’s problems, but we maximised every opportunity and brought the car home.
“There was very little grip, and the track was slippery, especially in the opening laps when we were on a harder tyre compound than the cars around us. I also had a scary moment exiting the pits after my stop, when I hit a wet patch, then went onto the white line and slid toward the wall.
“Fortunately, I only made light side contact and escaped with minimal damage that didn’t require repairs or affect performance. As we know, there is still more work to do if we want to become more competitive, improve the car’s performance and close the gap to those ahead of us on pure merit.”
A positive weekend for Alpine
As Franco Colapinto himself highlighted, Alpine ended the Canadian weekend with both cars in the points for only the second time this season, following the Chinese Grand Prix.
On that previous occasion, Pierre Gasly had finished ahead of his teammate. This time, however, the final classification favoured the Argentine, who crossed the line two positions ahead of the Frenchman. Pierre Gasly finished eighth and was equally encouraged by the overall team effort, even if he admitted his own weekend had been far from straightforward.
“Overall, it’s a very good team result and important points for the championship,” Pierre Gasly said. “From my side, it was a damage-limitation result that allowed us to recover from a difficult weekend and still finish eighth, staying in the points.
“In general, though, I had issues with the car again, and as a team we need to understand why and try to solve some of these problems. There is still a lot of work to do to bring the car back to a strong level, and that is our objective heading into Monaco.
“As for the race, we had a difficult start on the medium tyres, which were quite cold and offered very little grip in the early stages. But in the end, we managed to recover some positions and then fight with Liam Lawson in the closing laps.
“It was difficult to find a clear opportunity to overtake him, and we couldn’t make it happen, so we had to settle for eighth place. Now I’m looking forward to racing in Monaco. It’s my favourite circuit of the year, so I hope we can solve some of these issues and arrive there with more confidence and stronger performance.”
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