After months of Specion and half a day where he was perhaps the center of attention, Franco Colapinto was finally back in a Formula 1 car in Historic Imola for the first two practice sessions prior to the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Colapinto placed the 17th fastest time in FP1 and improved to P13 towards the end of FP2, giving the new Alpine Driver a boost of confidence on the way to end training and qualification of Saturday.
“It’s great to be back in a Formula 1 car in a race weekend. Post-Practice Report.” I have a still reading and getting used to, but I am building it and towards the end of the day I started to become a little more competitive.
The newest driver of Alpine reported that the A525 was “pretty strong” during the first two sessions.
“The car looks strong, especially with Pierre [Gasly] So I am sure we are in the mix. Qualification will be difficult with traffic, we have to be working on it from the start of Q1, “added Colapinto. In general I have been satisfied with my first day and I look forward to qualifying.”
On the oher -side of the garage, Pierre Gasly might hand in two of the biggest surprises of the day. Gasly was up in P6 when the clock went at the end of FP1 and improved to P3 during the second session.
“It has been a good Friday for us, the start of the day. From the first round I could see that the car felt good and we have fearful submissions from the last race, so that’s certainly positive. But the potential is certainly there,” Gasly began.
However, it was not a completely clean FP1 for the Alpine Driver. Towards the end of the first session, Gasly had an unfortunate incident when a rabbit ran onto the circuit.
“We had a small incident at the end of Free Practice 1, which was completely complete,” Gasly said. “A Haas jumped over the course for turn 14 and unfortunately hit my front wing. It was one of those things, nothing I could do, and we had damage to the car due to the impact. The team did an excellent job to repair things and minimize any disruption -free practice 2.
Gasly believes that Alpine is “in the mix” this week for Q3.
“On the right track it is in the area. We just have to keep this momentum, try to find more pace and strive for the mix for the top 10 in qualification. I am excited and read here in Imola for the rest of the weekend,” Gasly added.
Both drivers ran a mix of the C5 medium band and the C6 soft band. The C6 Soft Compound makes its debut this week in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
The last practice session starts on Saturday at 6.30 am Eastern Time/12: 30 pm local time. The IS is directly in the qualification, which starts at 10:00 am Eastern/4:00 pm local time.