Franco Colapinto was thrilled with his performance on Saturday at the Canadian Grand Prix as he progressed to Q3 for a second consecutive round, securing P10 on the grid and out-qualifying his Alpine team mate.
The Argentine driver seemed to take a step forward last time out in Miami as he made it into both SQ3 and Q3 before achieving his best-ever result of seventh in the Grand Prix, gaining a spot due to a post-race penalty for Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
He brought his impressive form to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and converted P13 to P9 in the Sprint, crossing the line a couple of seconds behind the last points scorer of Arvid Lindblad, and later denied Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg a place in Q3 by just 0.029s.
“I think today has been a perfect day,” Colapinto said after Qualifying. “It’s been very good in both sessions – the Sprint race and Qualifying. The race was very strong, very good pace, close to the points, and now again going flat-out from the start to the end and setting very good laps.
“I have confidence in the car and I’m very pleased with the result. I think we [made every] effort to put the car where it is today and everyone pushed so hard at the factory to be in this position and be close to scoring points, so I am very proud of everyone.
“I’m proud of myself – I did a good job today and I’m very happy with how we turned the year around. We started struggling in the first three rounds and now it’s been a good couple of sessions in a row where we’ve been strong, in front and in the points positions. I’m very happy and very grateful to the team.”
Expanding on the confidence he’s found in recent events, he added: “I think it kind of feels more like the first year I did in F1, 2024. I feel good and I feel able to push the limits.
“This year I felt good from the start, it’s just that we didn’t really have the pace in the first three races. Testing was good. Now it’s just that everything came together and we have very good pace and strong results.”
On the other side of the Alpine garage, his team mate Pierre Gasly experienced vastly contrasting emotions as he struggled to improve from a pit lane start in the Sprint and was then knocked out of Q2 in P14.
“Extremely slow on my side so I’m not too sure,” the French driver later said when reflecting on Qualifying. “We know we clearly have work to do but at the moment it’s just been two weekends of exactly the same thing. I can feel there is something not working but I need the team to help me.”
