🇶🇦 Franco’s Report from Qatar 2025

Weekend of learning, race progress and teamwork

Published

04 Dic 2025

Est. reading time

3 min

🏁 Franco Colapinto and his weekend in Qatar

Qatar Grand Prix – Lusail International Circuit

📆 Date: 28–30 November 2025 📍 Location: Lusail, Qatar

Franco’s positions throughout the weekend:

- FP1: P20: 1:23.529, 26 laps. - Sprint Qualifying: P8: 1:22.364, 8 laps. - Sprint Race: P20: 28:11.837, 19 laps. - Qualifying: P20: 1:21.137, 9 laps. - Race: P14 (starting from pit lane).

🏆 Qatar GP 2025 Results

🥇 P1: Max Verstappen (Red Bull) 🥈 P2: Oscar Piastri (McLaren) 🥉 P3: Carlos Sainz (Williams) 🇦🇷 P14: Franco Colapinto 🇫🇷 P16: Pierre Gasly ❌ DNF: STR (lap 55), HAD (lap 55), BEA (lap 41), HUL (lap 6)

Session Summary

Friday - FP1

Franco: P20: 1:20.924, 26 laps. The session was used to understand tyre degradation on the hard compounds and gather key data for the night Sprint Qualifying. The official report highlighted the limited track time (only one practice) and the set-up work ahead of qualifying.

- Sprint Qualifying (SQ)

Franco: P20: 1:22.364, 8 laps.

Saturday - Sprint (19 laps)

Franco: P20: 28:11.837 (+80.804s), 19 laps. Alpine chose to start from the pit lane after set-up changes aimed at improving performance for qualifying and made a late pit stop to continue the experiments, meaning he finished away from the pack. The Sprint was used to validate these adjustments.

- Qualifying

Franco: P20: 1:21.137, 9 laps. The session highlighted balance limitations and several lost laps due to track limits; the team worked on adjustments for the race.

Sunday - Race (57 laps)

Start: from pit lane due to parc fermé changes. Strategy: started on hard tyres; pit stops: lap 7 → new mediums; lap 32 → new mediums. Result: P14, with the fastest lap between him and GAS: 1:25.644 (lap 52, on mediums). Franco executed a controlled recovery from pit lane, managed DRS trains and defended key positions until securing P14.

⚠️ Safety Car

The safety car was deployed on lap 7 after an incident between GAS and HUL, affecting pit windows and strategies for all teams.

Franco’s Performance

Speedtraps:

- Sector 1: 245 km/h - Sector 2: 287 km/h - Finish line: 281 km/h - Top speed: 332 km/h

Sectors leaderboard:

- Sector 1: 31.754s - Sector 2: 28.978s - Sector 3: 24.522s

📻 Franco’s radio with Alpine

Messages showed Franco focused on car and tyre management: energy instructions, traffic references, and Safety Car control. After the race he said: “The car felt better with the set-up changes we made.”

Franco’s words:

“We knew that starting from the pit lane, and with the maximum tyre stints for this race, most teams would run similar strategies… there wasn’t really much we could do.” He also celebrated progress: “I was disappointed with myself yesterday, but today was a better day… Lots to take away and now we are focused on Abu Dhabi.”