Franco Colapinto reveals a lack of confidence with Alpine’s 2025 Formula 1 car is why he is unable to recapture the form he showed with Williams last season.
Seven races into his stint with the Enstone-based squad, Colapinto is finding it hard to extract results from the A525.
The Argentinian driver currently sits 20th in the standings, equal on points with his predecessor Jack Doohan on zero points.
Signed up as the team’s reserve driver, Colapinto was elevated to the race seat alongside Pierre Gasly on the basis of his meteoric cameo with Williams last year.
But while the 22-year-old was able to match Alex Albon’s pace in the FW46, he has admittedly struggled to cope with the inherent characteristics of Alpine’s F1 car.
“I didn’t have this issue last year,” Colapinto told media including Motorsport Week prior to the Hungarian Grand Prix.
“I could go straight in and be quick, straight away and straight forward.”
Last season, Williams elected to replace Logan Sargeant with Colapinto from the Italian Grand Prix onwards for the nine remaining races.
Heading into the summer break, Colapinto deliberated whether returning to the crop of circuits he has raced at in F1 might ameliorate his troubles.
“Yeah, I hope so. Of course, it’s tricky, I think,” he added.
“These tracks I’ve known very well, I’ve been racing at several races, but of course I didn’t need it.
“It’s going to help. I’ve been to tracks last year that I had no idea, and that I had not read before, because I was a very late boy, and I was straight away.
“So it’s just something that maybe helps to go to those tracks that I already know from last year.
“Last year, of course, it was not really an issue to go to tracks that I didn’t know, and that I didn’t know as well.
“I think there is just something else that needs to be, as well, apart of going to tracks that I already know.”
Colapinto points out A525 balance as bone of contention
Colapinto’s plight has contributed to Alpine languishing in last place in the Constructors’ Championship on 20 points, 15 points behind Haas in ninth.
And while the team has been working hard with the 22-year-old back at the factory, Colapinto believes the car’s inherent balance issues are impeding his progress.
“I said since the start that I’m lacking confidence in the car,” Colapinto explained.
“And I’m not finding so much confidence in some corners. I’m like, struggling to be able to turn in and come into the corners.”
When prodded further, he singled out the A525’s unpredictability during high-speed corner entries as the biggest factor that has hampered his performance.
“I think generally the car is a bit tricky on entries,” he continued.
“That’s what we are working on, because it got a little bit trickier on tracks as I struggled more, basically.
“When it gets a little bit worse, it’s where I lack a bit more performance. And we, most of the times, I would relate that to those issues.
“I think once we do it [solve the high-speed balance issue], everything is going to get easier. Let’s hope we get that click that we need, and I think it’s going to go well from there.”
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