Franco Colapinto, USA News (Mexico City): Franco Colapinto will officially start 11th in the Formula 1 Mexican Grand Prix after Liam Lawson received a penalty that reshuffled the starting order. The Argentine driver had originally finished 12th in qualifying after being eliminated in Q2, but advanced one position to start from the sixth row.
Colapinto recorded the 12th fastest time during qualifying for the Mexico City Grand Prix, the 19th round of the world championship held at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. Driving the Alpine A526, he advanced past the first timed elimination and logged a time of 1m17s640 in the second session. He was unable to improve further because the chassis did not respond as expected to setup changes made following practice.
One of the challenging areas for Colapinto has been the third sector passing through the Foro Sol, where the car experiences excessive sliding and lacks the desired grip for optimal traction. This is an issue he aims to address with his engineer, Stuart Barlow, and the Alpine F1 Team technicians ahead of the 71-lap race on the 4,304-meter circuit.
The Argentine driver aims to make progress on the Mexican track by utilizing his typical start-line strategy, capitalizing on the lengthy main straight to overtake rivals cleanly and break into the top 10 to score championship points. The performance of teammate Pierre Gasly, who advanced into the final qualifying session and secured 10th place, demonstrates that the Enstone machines have the pace to compete for points.
