Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Franco Colapinto claimed the first feature race podium of his 2023 FIA Formula 3 season by finishing second in last Sunday’s race at Barcelona.
The MP Motorsport driver left Spain satisfied with the results in what was his best weekend of the year so far. The Williams junior qualified third on Friday, and finished sixth in the reversed-grid sprint race before making the feature race podium, scoring a total of 23 points that lifted him to sixth in the standings.
“It was a decent race for us,” the Argentinian told Formula Scout on Sunday. “We had a good pace and the best thing is that we got a good points over the weekend. Yesterday, a really positive race with five points and good positions gained.
“And today from P3 to P2, a few more points for the championship. It was a good weekend. I’m happy for the team. They did a good job. The car was fast this weekend since the beginning. So thank you to them.
“It was a very important weekend for us also for the confidence and to be a bit more up there in the championship. From now on, we have to keep pushing, keep bringing and delivering good results for the team. Just keep pushing to be up there in the championship.”
Colapinto reckoned that had he overtaken Taylor Barnard earlier in the race, he might have had a better chance of challenging Campos Racing’s Pepe Marti for victory. He passed Jenzer Motorsport driver Barnard on lap 11 of 25, and was on the edge of getting within DRS distance of Marti until the last five laps, when he dropped back from the leader.
“It was difficult to get in the DRS of Pepe. I think if I would have been earlier on in second position, maybe it was a bit better for me to stick in his DRS and save a bit more the tyres. But unfortunately, he was quite fast,” admitted Colapinto.
“He was pushing a lot as well and we were very similar in terms of pace. So we couldn’t really get any closer or, you know, we were like one second, 1.5, 1.3, and I was just not getting close enough for the DRS. But overall a good weekend.”
There was “not too much” impact on Colapinto’s pace from tyre degradation while he was trying to chase Marti.
“I pushed the whole race quite hard just to try to get into the DRS and the tyre stayed quite consistent. I lost a bit the rears towards the end of the race, but the race was a bit over by that point. So not much I could do, and the car was good.