Alpine driver, Franco Colapinto. Image: Race Pictures

Colapinto makes ruthless admission after shunt in Azerbaijan

10:38, 24 Sep

Updated: 11:31, 24 Sep

bySamson Ero

Franco Colapinto reflected on his unsavoury outing during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend. The Alpine driver suffered a crash during qualifying at the Baku Street race.

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Franco Colapinto during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku. Photo: Race Pictures.

“I always prefer to have a little crash when I go quickly…”

- Franco Colapinto

The Argentine driver, who was brought in to replace Jack Doohan at the Enstone outfit, suffered a crash during the qualifying at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Colapinto, who was aiming to set a lap time during the largely chaotic qualifying session, found the barriers just four corners into his push lap.

However, reflecting on his crash during his media interaction at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the 22-year-old highlighted how he would prefer to crash than record a slow and safe lap.

“I always prefer to have a little crash when I go quickly than just to be slow and have always no damage.”

“It's not nice to finish like this today, but I'm sure that there is much more to come and that we are making good steps with the team. These things can happen here on a street track; it's always very tight margins."

“When you are on the back foot and always very, very close to going through – our prediction was probably P18 today in qualifying – we have to always make an extra effort to go through and have a perfect lap. When these things happen, it's always a bit trickier.”

Colapinto’s future up in the air?

Franco Colapinto’s crash comes amid growing speculations surrounding his future. The Argentine driver has seen talks about his future herald the spotlight, with the Alpine de facto team principal, Flavio Briatore, openly admitting to having rushed him too quickly into Formula 1.

The 75-year-old has, however, expressed optimism about the possibility of the former Williams Racing driver improving ahead of the sweeping regulation changes set to herald F1 from the 2026 season.

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