After crashing in qualifying for the Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Franco Colapinto revealed that he would rather be fast around a race track and “have a little crash” than have a clean, slow lap in his Alpine F1 car.
The Argentine was on a flying lap in Q1 at the Baku street circuit, which he says was “three tenths up after three corners”. However, at Turn 4 he encountered team-mate Pierre Gasly, who had taken to the escape road after making a mistake. Colapinto also struggled at the corner, but had no escape road to take and made contact with the wall – ending his session and leaving him lining up 16th for the grand prix.
The result wasn’t what the 22-year-old was hoping for on the streets of Baku, as he is currently fighting to convince Alpine bosses that he deserves his spot at the French team for 2026.
When asked about how he can prove himself to the team following the crash, Colapinto argued that he has been “really good in qualifying” in recent weeks, before explaining his all-or-nothing approach to F1.
“I always prefer to have a little crash when I go quick than just to be slow and have always no damage,” he explained.
“It’s not nice to finish like this today, but I’m sure that there is much more to come and that we are doing good steps with the team. These things can happen here in a street track, it’s always very tight margins.
“And when you are on the back foot and always very, very close to go through – our prediction was probably P18 today in qualifying – we have to make always an extra effort to go through and have a perfect lap. When these things happen, it’s always a bit more tricky.”
Franco Colapinto, Alpine
Photo by: Joe Portlock / LAT Images via Getty Images
The other aspect that made putting together the perfect lap on Saturday harder was the wind around Baku, which was gusting over 50km/h on some stretches of the track. The gusts caught several drivers out over the course of the session, and the tough conditions and raft of driver errors meant the session set a new record for red flags in F1 qualifying.
It was these tough conditions that Colapinto believes led to his session-ending contact with the wall.
“It was very tricky,” he said. “Probably a lot of wind there, a lot of gust, and I went in the corner and I lost completely the rear. I don’t really know the reason for it, but I guess it’s a lot of tailwind and I think a 60-80km/h gust, when it hits you like that, it lifts the rear up, and I just lost the rear completely.”
What made Colapinto’s issue worse was that team-mate Gasly had just suffered problems of his own at Turn 4, but had taken to the escape road instead of the wall. This, Colapinto says, left him with few options once he lost the rear of his A525.
“He went in the escape route, so couldn’t really go there and avoid the crash, because he was in there,” Colapinto remarked. “But, yeah, just tricky. I think there were a few places that were a bit tricky to drive, quite unpredictable.
“It’s always a distraction when someone goes off in the escape route, and you don’t know if it’s on a reverse or what. You always have a bit of a distraction. But that doesn’t take the part that, you know, I just lost a rear completely – really aggressively.
“I don’t really know the reason at the moment, but I need to see the data and understand why. Of course, it’s a pity, but we focus on tomorrow.”
The heavy impact Colapinto made means that he required a chassis change on his A525. Alpine confirmed that he will run its spare chassis in the race today, and said he has also taken a new gearbox.
Colapinto currently sits 20th in the F1 drivers’ standings with no points to his name, and admitted that Baku isn’t a track that will favour his Alpine car. Instead, he says the team will “keep focused” on Sunday and wait until the “good tracks come to us”.
