Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Franco Colapinto was “extremely happy” with his breakthrough maiden Formula 2 win in the Imola sprint race, earned with a last-lap move on Paul Aron.
At last month’s in-season test at Barcelona, Colapinto made a significant step forward with his qualifying simulations, which was proven this weekend as he qualified in the top 10 for the first time.
Starting from the front row of the sprint race’s reversed grid, the MP Motorsport driver dropped to third place before turn one and only got back into second on lap seven when he profited from a mistake by Amaury Cordeel to pass him. He then chased down Cordeel’s Hitech GP team-mate Aron, eventually overtaking him at the Tamburello chicane on the last lap.
“It was a tough start to the year, and we had some [bad] races, and after the test of Barcelona I was quite sure that we were going to turn it around soon, and it happened very quickly,” Colapinto told media including Formula Scout after the race.
“So very happy, very proud of the team. They’ve done a really, really good job, and they’ve been supporting me a lot these first few races where I didn’t perform at my maximum. And now I’m starting to feel a little more comfortable. And to be honest, today was where we could show the real pace of the car. So I’m really happy about the win, but also the pace that we showed. And also even the last lap. It’s just a bit nicer [to win like that]. A bit of a nicer feeling, and you just get all those emotions in only one lap. It’s the best to do it.”
Colapinto benefited from Aron suffering a car snap as he exited the last corner for the penultimate time, which cost him going onto the main straight. The chasing Colapinto committed to the outside line under braking heading into Tamburello, where he took the lead.
He praised Aron for a “very clean” defence in what he labelled as a “really, really tight” manoeuvre. “It’s the only way to pass in Imola,” he affirmed.
MP’s team principal Sander Dorsman described Colapinto’s race as a “good and clever job” to Formula Scout.
“The move in the last lap was fantastic. He fully deserves this win and which is also a good confidence boost for him. The speed was always there since the beginning, but a mix of bad luck, but also a lot of own mistakes prevented him to score some decent points.
“Here, back in Europe, we were aiming a bit for how to say for a hard restart. And I think we had one,” said Dorsman, who reckoned that a big part of drivers’ results is “[self] belief and confidence”.