It’s early morning in Argentina. In vegasOn the other hand, the night is in its infancy. Franco Colapinto He is already there, waiting for his seventh race in Formula 1, in this dizzying journey as a Williams driver. While here we only talk about his meeting in Madrid with the China Suarezthe 21-year-old is focused on his professional present. “No, no, there is nothing to tell. I am going to talk about motorsports and nothing else. I am very focused here on the race”he warns at the beginning of the talk with a handful of Argentine journalists.
Although his present is in the British team that incorporated him into its young drivers academy in 2023, his future could be in Milton Keyneswhere Red Bull has its headquarters, less than 100 kilometers from the factory Grovewhere employees worked day and night so that in Las Vegas the team of James Vowles Present both cars. “I’m not very aware, my managers are the ones in charge of all the issues of teams, of contracts. I don’t know anything about how the future is going until now, I don’t have much information and I’m not the one in charge of talking to the equipment and so on. I don’t have any new information. Perhaps María is the best person to tell you how we are doing in that regard.”points out the rumors that link him with the team whose visible face is Max Verstappen.
“I still have three more races with Williams, I really want to reverse what happened in Brazil. The team did an enormous job to bring the two cars here in the best possible conditions, so I’m really looking forward to racing here and in Qatar and Abu Dhabi the last three races of the year and see how we finish the season. The truth is that the guys on the team deserve a good result, a good end to the year, so we are going to work hard to do it and. Then we’ll see what next year has in store for us.“he adds.
In these three races, Colapinto does not plan to show himself to “conquer” a buyerbut to help the team get out of ninth place in the Constructors’ World Cup the one who fell after the abandonments in Interlagos. “Give your best”he responds, bluntly, when Clarion Ask him what he wants to show. “I think the team is doing a very good job and they deserve good results. I want to go step by step. They are again circuits that I don’t know, difficult circuits, but I think we have a good opportunity with the team to have good races here , in Qatar and in Abu Dhabi. I’m going to do my best, go back step by step and go through all the processes. I think we can have a good weekend here. We are going to try to reset, start from scratch, erase a little of what happened in Brazil and give it all back“he emphasizes.
“What happened in Brazil” It was his crash in qualifying and in the race during his first time on a rainy track. “I’m fine. It took a little time (to recover), obviously they are hard moments. But in motorsport there are those complicated moments, moments that sometimes we don’t want to happen but they end up happening. It is a high-risk sport and they are things that They can happen. It’s part of the sport. It’s part of motorsport. They are moments and situations that we wish didn’t happen but that do happen from time to time. It had been five very good races until Brazil. Brazil was not my weekend. So good another experience to continue learning. There were few races but in each one I had different things that I learned from and in the end those experiences will help me a lot for the future. Happy with what I’m experiencing, happy to be back here with the team. And I think driving in the rain in Brazil also helped me learn a lot of new things. “Within all the bad, I think you have to see the good and there were surely good things.”he emphasizes.
In that sense, Las Vegas appears as a good challenge if you take into account what happened in 2023 with Williams, when Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant advanced to Q3 in qualifying and started fifth and sixthrespectively -then they finished 12th and 16th-. Although the main question is to see how the FW46 of the Thai and the Argentine turned out after the strong impacts at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace.
“Last year the team here did very well, they had a good result in qualifying so with good expectations. You have to try to understand the car quickly and get the tires up to temperature quickly because the temperature is low and very cold so it’s going to be difficult. But the team did a tremendous job, really, to bring the two cars in the best possible way. Obviously -Warns Colapinto about the state of the cars- We don’t know until we put them on the track, but we have very good expectations that we are going to run well, that the cars are fine after the accidents. The team worked day and night to get everything ready for this race. So we’ll see how it goes. “Looking forward to the weekend starting.”.
And adds: “I was doing a lot of simulator work. I was really looking forward to this race, to Las Vegas. It is a circuit that is very fun, that is new, a track that attracts drivers a lot, because Las Vegas in the end is a magnificent city at night and “The races turn out very, very nice here. So I really wanted to make my debut on this circuit and I’m very happy and looking forward to Thursday and going out to spin in Las Vegas.”.
About the second night race of his lifeafter that great experience in Singapore, where he was 11th and received praise from Checo Pérez (“Collapinto is good, it is difficult to pass,” said the Mexican), the native of Pilar is enthusiastic: “I like it, I like it. It’s quite fun. I think it’s a bit more of a challenge for the drivers. Here in Las Vegas at night it’s practically day because there are so many lights it’s crazy. But it implies something nice in the end. It’s complicated with schedules: you practically have to sleep during the day and then be awake at night. It changes everything a little. So that’s a little strange. But it is a nice experience. They are beautiful races at night, with the light, with everything that Formula 1 cars generate, the speed. It’s much cuter. “It’s a lot of fun to run at night.”.
In closing, he insists on the need to add points again so as not to lose sight of Alpine, Haas y Racing Bullswho fight for sixth place in the World Cup. “We have to take everything a little more calmly, but on the other hand we have to be more aggressive, right? We are back ninth in the team championship and we have to try to turn the situation around as we can. We have to be a a little more aggressive at times and risk a little more to try to be in the right place at the right time. Things changed a little since Brazil, but we have to keep pushing. We are going to try to give it our all until the last race. Until the checkered flag is lowered in Abu Dhabi there is always an opportunity to fight and fight“says. Will you also talk about him and his chances of continuing in F1? In less than three weeks, surely, his future will be a matter of judgment.