Williams rookie Franco Colapinto delivered a promising yet frustrating performance during Friday's Sprint Qualifying session at the United States Grand Prix in Austin.
The young Argentine put in another stellar performance to become his team’s only representative in SQ3 after Alex Albon had spun out of contention in SQ2.
Colapinto will line up tenth on Saturday’s Sprint race grid at The Circuit of the Americas, but the 21-year-old he was left ruing a string of mistakes that he believes cost him a much better result.
“I’m just a bit upset because I was in a good place and we were looking like we could beat the cars or at least fight with the cars that are around and I did a mistake in my lap in Turn 1,” he explained after his session.
“Then I just had a slide in [turn] one, I had a slide in seven, I tried to recover the time but it just didn’t work.”
A spin at Turn 12 finally put paid to his efforts.
“So it was not a clean lap and I just feel bad for that because it felt like we should have been in the top eight, I think, as we finished in SQ2,” he said. “So it’s just a bit frustrating.”
Despite his annoyance, Colapinto remained optimistic about Williams’ overall performance, particularly in a weekend where the team hadn’t introduced any upgrades.
“There are not many points [in the sprint race], but we are still close to the points,” he said. “And I think in only an hour of track time, to learn the track and a bit the car, there was good progress and good improvement but just feel like there was more there.”
A contributing factor to Colapinto’s disappointment was a setup change he made before his final run, which he acknowledged was a misstep.
“I was pushing more,” he explained. “The F1 [car] has a lot of downforce, they say the quicker you go the more grip you have so I tried that technique and it worked.
“But it was a good quali, I’m just pissed off with myself because I had a change on the aero that I shouldn’t have done.
“It was the same as I did in Baku and it didn’t work in Baku and it looks like I didn’t learn from that and I asked for it again for SQ3 and it didn’t work again.”
Colapinto’s honesty about his learning curve and determination to improve reflects his growing experience in F1. He recognizes the need to find the balance between pushing the limits and understanding the car’s constraints.
“So it’s something I need to learn, to control a bit more and to understand where is the limit of the tyres. We’ll get better.”
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