The Alpine driver was perfectly placed behind Stroll and Bortoleto as the two came together on lap one at Interlagos, an incident which left the Brazilian home hero out of the race without completing a single lap.

Speaking after the Brazil GP, Colapinto said: “Stroll is always taking people out, just not looking in the mirrors, leaving no track.

Colapinto and Stroll had their own run-in at the Mexico GP. Colapinto spun on lap one after Stroll, running ahead, appeared to move across the track towards the path of Colapinto.

Despite being the one involved in the accident, Bortoleto appeared more diplomatic in his approach: “It was a first lap racing incident, and these things can happen, that's racing."

Retiring from both the Sprint and the Grand Prix, it was an underwhelming first home race for Bortoleto as the Brazilian fans cheered on their first home driver at Interlagos since Felipe Massa in 2017.

It was announced in the week leading up to the Brazil GP that Colapinto will driver for Alpine in 2026.

However, despite having his future now settled, Colapinto was unable to carry this positivity out of Sao Paulo, which is the closest race to the Argentinian’s birth place of Buenos Aires - despite being over 2200km away.

He said: “I think we just didn't really have a lot of pace in the car. It was quite a tricky weekend. After the sprint race crash, we changed the chassis and everything became more difficult.

Colapinto retired from the Sprint on lap 5 after losing control of the car over a wet patch of kerb on turn three - the same fate suffered by Oscar Piastri and Nico Hulkenberg.

He finished Sunday’s Grand Prix in P15 and half a second ahead of Stroll.

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