After months of speculation, Franco Kulapinto recently returned to the network.
Alpine switched to Super-SUB 2024 after the Grand Prix in Formula 1, freezing Jacques Duhan and promoting Colabinto, who signed a backup driver with the team before the 2025 season. Kulapinto issues his first appearance in the Alps this week in the Grand Emilia Romania race, and he only has five races to prove Flavio Bricor and decision makers in the process that is made from Eston is its headquarters.
Colabinto aims to “improve performance” in these five races.
“I think as a driver, I just try to go step by step,” Kulapinto said at FIA’s press conference on Thursday. “I don’t really know the car, so many new things are coming and I just want to do the basics correctly, then the results will come. I don’t really expect any kind of results. The difference of the difference is very narrow and changes from the path to the path.
“In the end, in FP1 and FP2 we do not have a clear vision of the place we are in. We are still working a lot with the team. The main goal is to make the car faster as well. We need to find a lot of performance, and I think this will come with a lot of work from everyone. This is the main goal – trying and improving performance and then of course, then, we will see.”
Colabinto first appeared on the network last year, where he entered Williams after the team separated from ways with Logan Sargent. The young driver ranked twelfth in his first race, the Italian Grand Prix race in Monza, but he brought home points in the next race, the Grand Prix of Azerbaijan.
He finished the points twice last year with Williams, with P8 in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, and P10 in the United States’ Grand Prix.
The driver opposed his first appearance in 2024, with the “comfortable” atmosphere at the present moment.
“I don’t really think it’s a new thing. I’m more relaxed. I went through the race experience, it was an experience on the weekend with a different team,” said Clapinto. “I still have this feeling – I was racing in December, so he is not far away. He didn’t feel himself like Monza. Monza was a tremendous excitement, everything was new, it was the first time that I was part of the Formula 1 network.
“Here it seems a bit different. My dream is still really – so the feelings are the same – but now I want to work with the team. It is not only a dream to become a F1 driver, but it is about working for the team’s goals,” Kolapinto added. “Getting good results, consistency in points – this is what we want to achieve. So yes, let’s focus on the job and see what we can do.”
When asked if there is any additional pressure on the Columbino this time, knowing that he only has five races to prove himself and with a full -time potential spot on the network on the line, the young driver indicated that he “cannot wait in the car.”
“Last year, everything was new and it was very difficult to take all the information. I now think I am only six races behind every person who was already racing-in evolution, and linking the tires, I do not know those of the first six races,” said Clapinto. “But I am much closer to last year. Last year, I had zero experience. I had no test. I had 300 just [kilometers] From running in the F1 before I drive it in Monza. It was much more difficult. I think I felt more pressure there, just because everything was new.
“This year, just the presence of this additional experience, the presence of this knowledge of the race already in Formula 1 will help me a little. So, yes, we hope it is. Yes, you cannot wait to jump in the car.”
Clapinto jumps in the car later to the FP1, the first three training sessions before the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
