Franco Colapinto alters stance on disobeying Alpine F1 team order

Franco Colapinto has performed a U-turn with his opinion about ignoring a team order from Alpine at the United States Grand Prix.

The 22-year-old Argentine was instructed to “hold position” behind Alpine teammate Pierre Gasly in the closing stages of last Sunday’s race in Austin, but took matters into his own hands.

Colapinto pulled off a clean overtake on Gasly on his way to securing 17th, while the Frenchman dropped behind Gabriel Bortoleto’s Sauber as he finished 19th and last in the final classification.

But Colapinto has now admitted he was wrong to disobey Alpine’s team order.

“The team situation on Sunday has been discussed internally and it is clear that instructions by the team must always be followed no matter what,” Colapinto said in Alpine’s preview ahead of this weekend's Mexico City Grand Prix. 

“We are all together, and we are all working towards the same goal to keep getting better with each session and each race weekend.”

It marks a notably different stance to how Colapinto viewed things immediately after the race.

“I just had quite a bit more pace than Pierre in the last stint and had Bortoleto really close behind, attacking very hard, and he was much quicker than us,” he said.

“I just couldn't really help with how slow Pierre was going, so I think it was the best for the situation to have me in front and try not to get both cars behind.

“They let us race in other tracks; I think here for the situation I was in – I was attacked very heavily by Bortoleto – it was probably the best to have me in front, otherwise we were going to get both overtaken.

“We just need come with all the data and analyse every moment of the race.”

Alpine left ‘disappointed’ by Colapinto

Alpine said they would review the matter internally, suggesting that Colapinto has since been reprimanded.

“On Pierre's side, we covered an undercut threat to box onto softs, a little earlier than we wanted, and then had a slow pit stop, which we will review and rectify,” Alpine managing director Steve Nielsen said.

“Franco was able to extend his medium run to have a tyre delta towards the end of the race where he caught up to Pierre. We gave the instruction for the drivers to maintain position as we were managing fuel with both cars and the added variable of the number of laps remaining with the leaders in close proximity.

"As a team, any instruction made by the pit wall is final and today we are disappointed that this didn't happen, so it's something we will review and deal with internally.”