Alpine issues Colapinto update after Baku qualifying crash

Franco Colapinto will line up 16th on the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, despite Alpine setting up the team’s spare chassis for him following his qualifying crash.

Heading into the final minute of Q1 needing to improve his time to avoid elimination, Colapinto got it wrong at Turn 4 and crashed nose-first into the wall.

Franco Colapinto will take his place on the Baku grid after a change of chassis

The Argentine driver, under pressure to retain his seat after Flavio Briatore revealed Paul Aron is also a candidate for F1 2026, had a bizarre moment with his teammate Pierre Gasly as they made mistakes almost in formation.

But while Gasly found himself the wrong way up an escape road, Colapinto was in the wall.

“It’s always a distraction when someone goes off in the escape road,” explained the 22-year-old, “and you don’t know if it’s going to reverse.

“But yeah, that doesn’t change the fact I lost the rear really aggressively and I don’t really know the reason at the moment, but I need to see data and understand why.

“It was very tricky, and probably a lot of wind there. I went into the corner and I lost the rear, completely. I don’t really know the reason for it.

“I guess it’s a lot of tailwind. I think it was something like 60kph, and when it hits you like that, it lifts the rear, and I almost lost the rear completely.”

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His A525 suffered extensive front left damage, with Alpine making the call to put the driver onto the team’s spare chassis.

The Alpine statement read: “CAR 43 UPDATE:

“Following yesterday’s incident in Qualifying at Turn 4 and the resulting damage to the A525, Franco Colapinto will take the spare chassis and a replacement gearbox for today’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

“He will start the race from P16 on the grid.”

Colapinto is not giving up on a points-scoring finish in what has the potential to be a chaotic grand prix.

“So we need to focus on tomorrow,” he said after qualifying. “But there were some improvements. There were some things that were getting better through the weekend.

“We were, generally, just setting better lap times and more consistent during the day, and we found some better compromise for the low speed. But we now need to focus on tomorrow.”

Colapinto has yet to get off the mark for Alpine in his 10 starts since he replaced Jack Doohan at Imola.

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