Sunday will be one of the most significant days of Franco Colapinto’s life. Following his announcement as Logan Sargeant’s mid-season replacement at Williams on Tuesday, he will finally line up for his first F1 race.
Colapinto was drafted in with only a single session of F1 running to his name, coming in FP1 at Silverstone. Only 12 months ago, he was racing in Formula Three at Monza. It’s a tall order facing the young Argentine on Sunday.
Yet he has taken everything in his stride this weekend. He finished ninth in FP3 and was just two-tenths off Albon in the sister Williams, but a mistake on his final lap in Q1 cost him a likely advance to Q2. While 18th on the grid is hardly a bad start, Colapinto felt he had more to give.
Heading into the race, Colapinto has only completed a longest run of eight laps. This means that the 56-lap distance at Monza will test him physically in a way that no amount of Formula Two will have conditioned him for. That’s before you consider the mental challenge of coping with everything a race can throw at you, particularly in F1 with the myriad switch changes and tweaks that can be made through a race. It means Sunday is about building Colapinto’s knowledge instead of the result.
💬 “It’s going to be a nice learning session for me, understanding the tires. I need to keep understanding how the car and tires work.”
Williams has given Colapinto the message to enjoy this nine-race stint and not stress too much about proving a point. But you can be sure that Colapinto will do everything he can to impress on Sunday and make it a debut to remember.
