It was extraordinary Franco Colapinto reached Formula 1 at all, let alone make the impact he did in last year’s nine-race stint with Williams. Perversely, the very challenges that made becoming a grand prix driver so extreme a long shot better equipped him to seize this career-making opportunity.
Although Colapinto is back on the sidelines as Alpine’s test and reserve driver, it’s reckoned to be only a matter of time before he is promoted to a race seat given Jack Doohan’s precarious position. Regardless of when it happens, he should again be well-placed to make the most of it even if it’s another sudden mid-season change.
The 21-year-old’s rise to F1 was so improbable given he never had much funding. Since heading to Europe at the age of 14 with little backing, budget has always been a struggle – even when in the karting ranks. Often, testing was at a premium and an ongoing race seat was not always guaranteed, instead contingent on results produced every time he got in the car. Colapinto recognised, and likely internalised, the necessity of giving it everything.
That was exemplified when he made his single-seater debut in the final round of the 2018 Spanish F4 championship, winning the final race of the quadruple-header event despite limited preparation. The following year, he won the title.
That capacity to jump into a car in less-than-ideal circumstances while facing an uncertain future and nail it was the critical quality that allowed him to make such a big impact when he took over Logan Sargeant’s seat at Monza last September. He wasn’t overawed and took an attacking approach to his opportunity, which was first showcased by recovering from an FP1 crash in Azerbaijan to finish eighth in only his second outing.
Later in the season, with big accidents in Brazil (twice) and Las Vegas, that proved counter-productive and knocked a little of the shine off his remarkable arrival, but by then he'd already transformed himself from a driver barely on the F1 radar to one widely regarded as having a promising future.
“That’s a pressure you learn to manage when you're quite young and you don't have many opportunities, and you don't have many chances of what you’re doing next if this doesn't go well,” said Colapinto when I asked him in Abu Dhabi last year about what role his limited opportunities on the way to F1 played in his performances for Williams.
“When I was young, I was never sure if I was going to be able to [do] the next race if I didn't perform in that one, or if I had a crash or anything. I didn't used to have crashes - my first ones were in F1, almost!
“It’s part of the process. I’ve been through some moments that were tricky, trying to maximise the car. Brazil was very tough, a lot of rain, the car was almost undriveable for everyone. I see that as my first experience in the wet, my first experience on inters, everything was very new, so I understand that one. The one that hurts me is the Vegas one because I was in control and pushing the limits in qualifying, trying to put a Williams in Q3.
"The risk management was not right, but it’s in my nature to try and maximise every moment I jump in the car, as you said. And I think that was what I was going for, trying to put the car in Q3 and it didn't work. But it's part of the process, part of experience and I'm really happy with what they've done in these nine races."
You therefore can argue the odds of him reaching F1 were slashed by the challenges of his junior career, but this has ironically made him better equipped to capitalise once on the grid. Equally ironically given his struggle to get sponsors behind him in the junior ranks, the lure of F1 opened the floodgates to them and Williams was able to leverage the attention around Colapinto to entice a host of South American sponsors.
While there’s no doubt Colapinto would have preferred to have endless testing and the best machinery, which has its own value, the experience he had has played a part in turning him into a driver capable of dealing with the opportunity of a lifetime coming unexpectedly in the pressure-cooker environment of F1.
He’s certainly confident, or even as some have argued arrogant, which can be a valuable quality in elite sport. Add to the mix the sudden fame in his native Argentina, and the resulting scrutiny, and he’s been hard-cured into a robust driver mentally who is capable of thriving in adversity.
Colapinto had relatively little preparation for his debut, which on paper set him up to be a one-and-done driver in F1 expected to slide away into other categories after his nine-race stint. Without the chance to rack up miles of TPC (testing of previous cars, which last season was for machinery of 2020-2022 vintage), no pre-season testing and his only previous runs for the team in FP1 at Silverstone and the post-Abu Dhabi GP test in 2023. With no possibility of staying at Williams as a race driver in 2025 given the arrival of Carlos Sainz to partner Alex Albon, he knew he needed to make a big impression. And he did.
“Imagine [going into] F1 when I had no preparation,” says Colapinto. “I only did FP1 at Silverstone and then went straight in at Monza to do a full race weekend, almost with no mileage in an F1 car and I performed almost straight away. That comes with the need of going to the limit straight away and of performing quick.
“That was [the case] in every category I drove before. I know I have it, so it's not as difficult as it looks because it been like this all my life. It just comes naturally.”
The adaptability Colapinto highlights as one of his strengths complements what might be called a ‘seize the day’ mentality, allowing him to deliver. He’s a quick learner, he’s had to be, and proved himself to be a driver who can wring the neck of a car with confidence without endless opportunities to fettle it to perfection.
“Adapting well to these different moments, these tough moments of pressure, of not knowing how it's how it's going to be, I was quite good,” says Colapinto. “It's difficult to come into Formula 1 when everyone is on top of the tyres, on top of the cars, on top of the tools and you suddenly are new and you don't know anything and you just have to sit there and drive the car. Adaptation was key in the very short period of time and lack of track time I had.”
These were the ingredients making Colapinto the sleeper hit of F1 2024. He arrived unexpectedly, amid zero expectations, and used the impregnable self-belief, a mentality sharpened by years of struggle and the knack for adaption developed on his way to F1. He exhibited a good turn of pace, allowing him to score five points and, briefly, even emerge as a candidate for a move to Red Bull Racing. One of the reasons that was considered was the robust mentality he demonstrated.
There will be further tests for Colapinto. Fundamentally, he wasn’t as quick as Albon and if you sort through the various inequalities and problems distorting performance, his qualifying deficit was perhaps somewhere around the two tenths of a second mark. In the circumstances, that was impressive. But he will get quicker with more experience, and it’s only with time we’ll get a final answer on just how quick Colapinto is. Last year, he was plenty fast enough and there is more to come. Potentially enough for a long and fruitful F1 career.
When his Alpine promotion comes, the formative role of very challenges that made him establishing himself in F1 so improbable will again serve him well. Then it’s up to him to build on the foundation he’s built.
