Franco Colapinto in Tears After Risk Taking Got The Better of Him at Italian GP
· Yahoo Sports
Franco Colapinto was left frustrated after a mistake that cost him larger points at the F1 Italian GP, as he gets emotional when speaking to various media.
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While the spotlight was on his teammate Pierre Gasly after his pole in F1 Italian GP, Alpine’s Colapinto quietly did the job from FP1 till the grand prix. He made it in Q3 and made good starts to be up to third at one point before it all unraveled for him at Monza.
At the second re-start, he made places to be third in the first part of the circuit until Turn 5-6 sequence when in a bid to stay afloat with the rivals, he went off track in the gravel. It was the key moment which cost him places as he dropped back outside the Top 10.
He managed to recover back some of the places with the pace he had to end up ninth in the end, two places behind Gasly who was seventh from pole. Post-race, Colapinto was seen dejected and even shed tears when speaking with the various media, whether TV or written.
The Argentine took it on himself. Even on the radio, he called himself “idiot” for the mistake after the race. His race engineer consoled him and encouraged him for the recovery drive into the points. Despite some cheer, Colapinto was still emotional for some time as seen in the media.
Colapinto emotional after wasted opportunity
He thought he wasted a very good opportunity, as it is not always that he gets to fight top end drivers. The situation got the better of him, he explained. “I am just frustrated,” said Colapinto to media after F1 Italian GP. “I think I did so much stuff and then I just lost the car completely in Turn 5, 6, out of nowhere. It’s very frustrating. I think we’ve done some good things, P2 and P3 together.
“And you feel so strong and suddenly fighting with the top teams, you get very motivated very quickly. A mistake like that throws it all away. I am just frustrated, I don’t really understand yet what happened. I lost the car very aggressively. And I went very fast to catch it but it was impossible. Then we started to go again. We changed the car a little bit with the tools.
“We fixed everything, made the car slightly more drivable again. And yeah, I managed to score points. It’s some very good start for me. I am just frustrated with not maximising the car and the good stuff that we were doing together. I think we just learn for the future. We don’t get many of these opportunities fighting high up there and at the front.
“It’s extra frustrating too. To have moments like this, I think we should have scored more points. So yeah, sorry to the team. And hopefully we’ll have a better chances,” summed up an apologetic Colapinto. He was happy with the re-start when he did also the good work. That is the part that made him frustrated that all of that was undone in one corner.
Colapinto: felt nice to battle top drivers but hurts to throw it away
It is not often that he gets to race against Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, but he stuck there. When in the car, it doesn’t come to him that someone is a F1 world champion, but there was a tinge of overwhelming emotion that pushed him to take a risk, which didn’t pay off.
“Yeah, that’s why I think it’s so frustrating,” continued Colapinto. “It was a very good re-start, I got ahead of four of the top teams’ cars into re-start, and that’s why it hurts so much to throw it away, taking more risks and being up there with them, and you don’t realise that it’s not really your fight.
“You’re feeling the volume and you want to keep going and taking risks, and maybe it didn’t make sense. Again, chance to learn from it and try to improve for the next time I get a chance. It was okay [to fight top drivers]. I think when you’re in the car, you don’t really feel the difference if it’s one or another. It was cool to be fighting with them.
“That’s what I meant, to be fighting side by side with the top cars and the top teams, we cannot really do it. And so to just miss an opportunity like this, it’s very painful,” summed up Colapinto, who recalled a smart move that he did just before the safety car when Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc crashed. Having seen the nature of the accident, the Argentine was quick to use all his battery.
Smart move before safety car but mistake after re-start
He did so against Piastri and took the place, with the hope that the race will be nuetralised and he will keep the place. The trick worked and he gained a place before safety car was deployed. “No, I just used all the battery,” said Colapinto. “Because I knew there was going to be a safety car on the right, I hoped.
“So, I used all the battery there. Yeah, I got quite quick.” It was a smart work but Colapinto felt the mistake equaled it out for him in the end. “Yeah, there were some smart things and some pretty stupid ones too, I guess they balanced each other out,” he put in a rare smile.
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