Franco Colapinto has been an F1 2025 “disappointment” in the opinion of former F1 driver Christian Danner.
To Danner’s mind, Colapinto “doesn’t deliver anything tangible on track”. The former Zakspeed, Osella, Arrows and Rial driver also took aim at Colapinto’s fans, who he finds “really extreme”.
Franco Colapinto: The right driver for Alpine?
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
Colapinto turned heads when he burst onto the Formula 1 scene in 2024. After a respectable junior career, the Argentine was called-up by Williams as a mid-season replacement for Logan Sargeant.
He scored five points, and for a time was even linked with joining the Red Bull fold.
No space opened up for Colapinto on the initial F1 2025 grid, but having joined Alpine as a reserve, he was soon linked with Jack Doohan’s seat. It was the seat he took from the Australian by Round 7 at Imola.
But, like Doohan, Colapinto has failed to score a point in Alpine colours thus far. Rookie mistakes have also continued to crop up, including a heavy qualifying shunt at Imola, and crashing out during a recent Pirelli tyre test.
As Danner took stock of F1 2025 part one, he pointed to Lewis Hamilton as the “most negative” surprise so far, as he continues to struggle at Ferrari. Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda also got a mention.
At that point, Danner turned his focus to Alpine’s 22-year-old Argentine.
“Another disappointment for me is Franco Colapinto,” he told ran.de.
“He simply doesn’t deliver anything tangible on the track.”
In addition to a perceived lack of performance, Danner feels Colapinto’s fans create a “very unpleasant” environment, something which he understands Colapinto is not at fault for.
“And at the same time, he has an extreme fan base from Argentina that is sensitive to criticism,” Danner continued.
“I speak from personal experience. Any criticism brings with it a sh*tstorm. That’s very, very unpleasant. It’s not his fault, but the fans are really extreme.”
Franco Colapinto and Pierre Gasly head-to-head in F1 2025
👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates
👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates
While it must be stressed that a small section of Colapinto’s supporters account for any unsavoury scenes, the topic did come under the microscope earlier this season.
Tsunoda revealed that he had been subject to abuse from Colapinto fans, following an incident at Imola where Tsunoda waved a hand of frustration in Colapinto’s direction.
Jack Doohan – the driver Colapinto replaced at Alpine – also previously took to social media to call out “multiple Argentine outlets”. That was in response to a fake image which circulated, portraying his father Mick Doohan mocking Colapinto’s Imola qualifying crash. Jack stressed it was “clearly completely false”.
Addressing the incidents, Colapinto told the media, including PlanetF1.com: “I received a lot of criticism on social media since I was in Formula 2.
“I think we are athletes, and we have to focus on what we can control. There is things out of our control that we cannot really change, how people respect the others and what those people do, and I try my best to try to ban people that I can control regarding more that are my fans.
“So, that’s a work in progress. I know there is some, you know, overreacting, and they are very passionate, but they are also very euphoric, and some are a bit aggressive. That’s the reality.
“So, on my side, I’m trying to do my best. I know a lot of people are receiving hate. I did as well. So just things that we need to take out of our head when you’re on track and just focus on driving.”
Formula 1’s governing body the FIA has moved to clamp down on online abuse, via the United Against Online Abuse initiative.