{"id":852059,"date":"2026-08-12T01:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T01:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/852059\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T01:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T01:34:11","slug":"f1-news-2026-franco-colapinto-robbed-fan-backlash-deleted-instagram-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/852059\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 news 2026: Franco Colapinto robbed, fan backlash; deleted Instagram post"},"content":{"rendered":"

F1<\/a> driver Franco Colapinto has taken to Instagram to reveal he was robbed while holidaying in Italy.<\/p>\n

But the way he went about it triggered a backlash from fans and caused him to first edit, and then delete the post entirely.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Franco Colapinto revealed on Instagram he had been robbed while on holiday in Italy.\u00a0Instagram\/@francolapinto<\/p>\n

The Argentine is on holiday in Lake Como, north of Milan, during the F1 mid-season break and revealed a suitcase of clothes and a kit to make mate (a tea-like Argentine drink) had been stolen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho would have thought that Italians would steal everything from a Latino? I\u2019m sure they won\u2019t like the mate,\u201d the Alpine<\/a> driver wrote in a post, per Planet F1.<\/p>\n

Following backlash from fans, he changed \u201cItalians\u201d to \u201cEuropeans\u201d, before deleting the post altogether.<\/p>\n

In a later post, he shared a series of photos taken from before the robbery, and said he hoped \u201cwhoever took it all enjoys it\u201d.<\/p>\n

Colapinto is the latest victim in a series of robberies targeting F1 drivers. In 2021, Lando Norris<\/a> had a watch with a six-figure valuation stolen while following the Euro 2020 final<\/a> Wembley Stadium. <\/p>\n

Both Charles Leclerc<\/a> (2022) and Carlos Sainz<\/a> (2023) have also had similarly-valued watches pinched, although the latter managed to chase the thieves down and get it back.<\/p>\n

At the Miami Grand Prix<\/a> in May, Valtteri Bottas<\/a>\u2032 hire car, in which a bag which held his paddock credentials and other valuables, was stolen from his accommodation.<\/p>\n

After a shocking 2025 season in which he failed to score a point after taking over from Jack Doohan<\/a> at Alpine, Colapinto and the French team are fairing significantly better.<\/p>\n

Colapinto sits 12th in the standings with 19 points. He has a season-best finish of sixth at the Canadian Grand Prix<\/a> in May. He sits two places behind teammate Pierre Gasly, although has less than half his points.<\/p>\n

The Alpine team sits sixth in the constructors\u2019 standings, just six points behind Racing Bulls in a tight battle for fifth.<\/p>\n

The F1 season continues with the Dutch Grand Prix<\/a> – which includes a sprint race – on the weekend of August 21-23.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"F1 driver Franco Colapinto has taken to Instagram to reveal he was robbed while holidaying in Italy. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":852060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-852059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/852060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}