Colapinto in tears after gravel excursion ends podium bid at Italian GP

Franco Colapinto was fighting for a podium at Monza before a costly off at the Lesmo corners dropped him to 16th, with the Alpine driver ultimately salvaging ninth place and a points finish at the Italian Grand Prix.

Colapinto had started seventh but benefited from early chaos involving Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, which sent Hamilton tumbling down the order. He gained another position when Leclerc crashed at the end of lap two, then overtook Oscar Piastri moments before the race was red-flagged — leaving him fourth on the grid for the second start.

At the restart, Colapinto immediately attacked Max Verstappen into the first chicane, briefly moving up to third. Verstappen fought back on the run to the Variante della Roggia and retook the place, but just metres later Colapinto lost control through Lesmo and speared into the gravel, undoing all of his earlier gains.

“I had a great opportunity and I didn’t take it, so I’m sad, really sad about that,” a tearful Colapinto told ESPN Argentina after the race. “I think it could have been a great race, and that was a big mistake. I missed a very important opportunity for the team and for myself. Learning from this is difficult.”

He remained visibly frustrated when speaking to the written press at Monza. “I just lost the car completely in Turn 5-6, a bit out of nowhere — it’s very frustrating,” he said. “I think we could have done some good things, P2 and P3 together, and you feel so strong and suddenly fighting with the top teams, you get very motivated very quickly, and a mistake like that throws it all away.”

Colapinto admitted he had not yet fully understood the cause of the snap. “I lost the car very aggressively, I went very fast through the gravel, I had a lot of damage, I thought I was going to have to retire,” he said. “Then we started to go again, we changed the car a bit with the tools, closed everything up a little bit and made the car slightly more draggy again — and managed to score points.”

The scale of the opportunity is underlined by the race’s broader narrative. Colapinto’s team-mate Pierre Gasly started from pole position yet finished seventh, suggesting the chaotic conditions had genuinely opened the door to a strong result. Colapinto, who was confirmed last week as continuing with Alpine into the 2027 season, will know that moments like Sunday’s are rare — and that he let one slip.