Franco Colapinto’s dramatic Imola GP crash shouldn't define his Alpine F1 debut

Any driver’s weekend will always be defined by a heavy smash, and this is amplified if the driver in question is Franco Colapinto, who made a high-profile 2025 debut with Alpine after replacing Jack Doohan just six races into the Formula 1 season.

The Argentine was on his last lap at the end of Q1 when he drove onto the grass at the exit of the second turn at Tamburello. This sent him spinning into the gravel trap and into the barriers.

A crash was the last thing Colapinto needed, following the heavy shunts he sustained during the second part of his nine-race stint with Williams last year in Brazil and Las Vegas. Even the acting Alpine boss, Flavio Briatore, made this clear on Friday at Imola.

“He needs to be fast, not crash and score points,” Briatore said. “I’m only asking him to do three things, not 10. If he does them well, he’ll drive forever.”

It’s fair to argue Colapinto failed to deliver on at least one of those requests by crashing last Saturday, but a broader view of the Argentinian driver’s weekend does show some encouraging signs as well.

All eyes were on Colapinto when he returned to the paddock on Thursday, this time as an Alpine racing driver. At the start of his first F1 stint with Williams, expectations were limited. Although his popularity quickly exploded in his home country, as he is the first Argentinian driver to race in F1 for more than two decades.

Franco Colapinto, Alpine

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images via Getty Images

This time, his loyal Argentinian fans started making noise early in the weekend and showed up at the racetrack on Thursday eager to witness their driver’s return. While many observers felt it was harsh for Alpine to replace Doohan after just six races of the season, it was now on Colapinto to make the seat his and prove that he could achieve what the Australian couldn’t. So, did he?

Getting closer to Gasly

After helping the team with the simulator in Enstone over recent races, and embarking on a series of testing of previous cars (TPC) events, Colapinto spent Friday’s practice sessions getting to grips with driving the Alpine A525 for the first time in real life.

The Argentinian finished practice one in 17th place, 0.677 seconds behind his team-mate Pierre Gasly, having been unable to maximise the potential of the soft tyre in his only attempt of the session. Nevertheless, Colapinto reduced this gap to less than half a second by the end of the second practice session, achieving 13th place, while Gasly was an impressive third on what the Frenchman called the team’s best Friday of the year.

Having completed 50 laps on day one, Colapinto continued to improve during Saturday’s third and final practice session ahead of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, descending to 18th fastest in the charts but finishing just three places and two tenths behind Gasly.

The gap between the two Alpine drivers remained consistent in Q1, with Colapinto setting a lap time of 1m16.256s on his first attempt. This put him in contention for a spot in Q2, just three tenths behind Gasly.

The crash that occurred in the final seconds of Q1 undermined the Argentinian’s weekend. In his defence however, he wasn’t the only driver to make a mistake.

Gabriel Bortoleto lost control of his Sauber and hit the barriers at the end of FP1; both Racing Bulls, Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson, went off in almost the same place as Colapinto, with different consequences; and Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda, a driver on the brink of reaching 100 grand prix starts, crashed heavily in Q1.

“It was probably the first time that I really reached the limit of the car,” Colapinto explained as he took responsibility for the accident that left the front of his Alpine damaged.

“I was always a bit below, and it’s easy to go beyond that limit. I was pushing the limits a bit more. The margins are very tight in qualifying nowadays, so I try to use the kerbs a bit more.

“It looks really bad. But it’s not as bad as it looks in terms of how I’ve adapted to the car. I’m much happier and more comfortable in the seat than I was yesterday.”

Good tyre management provides optimism

The one-place penalty that Colapinto incurred due to a miscommunication with the team regarding when to leave the garage after Tsunoda’s accident didn’t help in Sunday’s race, nor did the couple of places he lost in the opening lap.

However, given the track characteristics and his lack of experience with the car, a big recovery was never a realistic target for Colapinto. Nevertheless, he still managed to showcase solid tyre management in the first stint, when the car is heavier with fuel, and that is often a weakness for rookies.

He was one of the last drivers to get rid of the medium Pirelli tyres when he pitted on lap 22, something he could have capitalised on if it hadn’t been for the poorly timed VSC. Nevertheless, in the latter stages of the race, he was able to match Gasly’s pace and even set a faster lap time than his team-mate, albeit with tyres half the age of the Frenchman’s.

Franco Colapinto, Alpine

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images via Getty Images

The end result was an unspectacular 16th place in Imola for Colapinto, who didn’t fulfil all of Briatore’s expectations, but neither did his teammate following the mistake that cost Gasly the opportunity to score points.

“It was actually a positive day after qualifying,” he said. “The race was a bit against us. I did the longest stint on the medium tyre, I was going for a one-stop, we changed the strategy quite a bit and I had very good pace compared to when we were on the hard tyres. When we stopped to put on the hard tyres a couple of laps later, the VSC came and killed me.

“The most important thing is that we had the pace and that compared to those around us, we were very strong. After that, we have to work to keep learning and understanding the car a little more.

“I think we have good data to go into the next races with a little more learning and a little more comfortable with the car.”