Colapinto’s Argentina reset sparks Alpine breakthrough after Miami chassis upgrade

Alpine managing director Steve Nielsen joked Franco Colapinto should head back to Argentina before every race after the youngster delivered his strongest Formula 1 result yet in Miami.

On top of that, Nielsen revealed the Alpine driver had been racing with a lighter, updated chassis in Florida over the weekend, which represented a “pure performance” gain.

Franco Colapinto boosted by Alpine chassis update after Argentina trip

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Colapinto took in a demo run around the streets of Buenos Aires in front of an estimated 600,000 people, far outstripping attendance at most race weekends on the calendar, as he took Team Enstone’s E20 for a spin, alongside a replica Mercedes W156, as would have been driven by Argentine Formula 1 legend, Juan Manuel Fangio.

Colapinto crossed the line eighth in Miami, but was later promoted to seventh place after a hefty 20-second penalty for Charles Leclerc following his multiple track limit breaches on the final lap.

That in turn made it the Argentine’s highest-ever finish in Formula 1, resetting after early contact with Lewis Hamilton to earn his highest one-race points haul in the top tier to date.

With Pierre Gasly having earned the lion’s share of points at Alpine in Colapinto’s time with the team, the team’s managing director felt that something of a “reset” appears to have worked well.

“I mean, we had a lot of chats with Franco,” Nielsen told PlanetF1.com and others.

“He was struggling a bit at the beginning to match Pierre’s pace. I don’t know whether it was as simple as him having a bit of time of downtime, and going back to Argentina and a bit of a reset, but he’s happier with the car here than he’s been so far this year, so I hope it continues.

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“I said to him yesterday, maybe you should go back to Argentina before every race.”

One contributing factor to performance will likely have come from Colapinto running an updated chassis in Miami over the weekend.

With teams’ first new chassis each season often built with FIA homologation in mind, Nielsen explained how performance improvements in that area come naturally over time.

While the chassis Colapinto is now using had been present in the days before the Australian Grand Prix, the turnaround time was too soon and it was first used in an Alpine filming day during the unplanned April schedule gap.

“Well, the new chassis was no secret,” Nielsen explained.

“Normally, when you make the first one, it turns out being the heaviest one and then, as you iterate, you make further chassis and they’re lighter. It’s no exception.

“Franco’s got chassis three. It’s lighter than chassis one, which is what he did have, because that does all the frontal impact testing and so on.

“So, we were able to give that to him, which has brought him down by a little bit, which is good, inside the limit.

“I must admit, it’s something we’ve been good at this year. The cars were on the weight limit or very just over it. We’ve been like that whole year, which is good.

“Not everybody is like that, and it’s pure performance to give weight away.”

Alpine sits fifth in the early Constructors’ standings, a marked improvement which has already seen the team surpass last year’s points tally.

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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