Photo: Red Bull
Franco Colapinto’s shock promotion to a Williams F1 seat for Monza provoked a chain reaction that required MP Motorsport and Campos Racing to move quickly to fill drives in F2 and F3.
Colapinto’s graduation was announced publicly on the Tuesday evening before Monza. As Sander Dorsman, team principal at Colapinto’s Formula 2 team, MP Motorsport, tells Formula Scout: “When we got the call about Franco, I think that was probably Tuesday, at three o’clock. So, you can imagine what a lovely evening I had on Tuesday!”
Nevertheless, he remained philosophical. “It’s never ideal to learn this so last minute but in the end, that’s also everything in this sport. It happens rapidly, doesn’t it?”
Despite the lack of notice, he says that “we had several options, and then you just look what is the best. And then I’d rather look to the future.”
For MP, Oliver Goethe was a logical choice since “we knew him from the years he was with us in Formula 4 and FREC [Formula Regional European Championship] so we know him and his parents, and his management is the same as Franco’s [Bullet Sports Management], so that works a bit more smoothly than if I need to deal with somebody outside.”
The change engendered mixed emotions for MP as alongside the added complications, Dorsman was naturally proud of the key role the team had played in developing Colapinto to the point that Williams chose to promote him.
“I’m proud of him that he got this golden ticket,” he said.
“To be honest, I think Williams did what every F1 team should do. If you need to find a replacement driver, take it out of your own academy. That’s what the academy is for.
“In that sense, I support this decision, and I’m super happy for Franco.
Photo: Renault / DPPI
“He is not from a rich background. So, it’s a nice story that everything is possible in life. Even if you’re a young boy from Argentina coming here when you’re 15 years old, all by yourself, and then look where you are now, I think that’s quite a nice story.”
With Colapinto’s debut coming at Monza, it brought the story with MP full circle, says Dorsman. “It’s funny, actually, he started with us in the Formula Renault Eurocup and it was in the Covid year [2020]. Just when Covid started, he was still in Argentina, and they were about to block all the flights. We just managed to get him on the last flight to Europe and actually the first race here in Monza [pictured above] he won with us.”
For Colapinto’s replacement, Goethe, it was a “crazy feeling. It was such a last minute call, so it was very unexpected.”
“I found out maybe an hour in advance about Franco. I think it was a late call for them as well,” he says.
Goethe recalls that it was “Tuesday afternoon or evening,” when he heard the news, probably therefore around 5pm, an hour before it became public.
However, he adds “we were speaking to MP already as an option [for F2], but the decision was only made on Wednesday, so a day before we had to be at the track.”
Unsurprisingly, this prevented any “opportunity to do any sim or any sort of prep[aration], so it was kind of just jump in it, learn as much as possible and do the best I can but it’s good fun and a good learning opportunity for next year.”
For Goethe, the weekend was “mostly about learning, and the rest comes as a bonus.” He said that his approach would be: “Be sensible but go for it.”
Photo: Red Bull
Nevertheless, he was metaphorically kicking himself for ending qualifying in 12th, “just half-a-tenth off reversed grid pole, which would have been amazing for my debut.” He admitted to being over-aggressive, resulting in “quite a lot of mistakes on the first set [of tyres].”
His sprint race would end before the first corner, as he got caught out in the usual midfield chaos as the field funnel into the chicane on lap one, while in the feature race he did at least have the satisfaction of one lap in the lead as the pit stop strategies unfolded.
Goethe’s move to MP left him with a potentially uncomfortable call to inform his Formula 3 team, Campos Racing, that he would not be racing for them at Monza.
“I think they understand my decision. I didn’t want to leave them in that position to have to find another driver at the last minute, like MP did with Franco, but for me, I think everyone agrees that this is the best option for me, and they understand where I’m coming from, so there’s no hard feelings or anything,” he told Formula Scout.
However, Adrian Campos Jr, team principal of the eponymous team, admits to being taken a little by surprise.
With Colapinto moving to F1, and Campos knowing that Goethe under the same management as the Argentinian, “and was going to jump to F2 in 2025, it at some point came to our mind that this was a possibility.”
However, Campos felt that with Goethe still having “a chance to become champion in F3 in this race, we thought that he was going to do the last race here, and maybe move to this free seat for the last three races of the championship.”
Still, “on Wednesday morning we realised that he was not racing with us. So, on Wednesday, since we started our trip coming to Monza, we were trying to find a replacement driver for him for this weekend,” Campos told Formula Scout.
Photo: Dutch Photo Agency
An additional complication for Campos in looking for replacement from the next level down, was the FREC rule that “doesn’t allow drivers to race on a track where FREC still didn’t go, as they still have a race in Monza.
“That was the biggest challenge but, apart from that, Noah [Stromsted] was a driver that has been racing with us in the past, in F4 with very good results.
“We knew him and we thought that he could be up there, he could learn a lot and he could do some nice races.”
With no time to waste, “the first one that we called was Noah and he was very keen, so as he was the first option, we went ahead with him and everything has been agreed very soon,” said Campos.
“Of course, it helped [that Diego Menchaca is also Stromsted’s manager] and they understood that Ollie was moving up, so they saw a chance and they immediately asked if there was any chance.”
Stromsted himself found out that he would be making his F3 debut “on Wednesday afternoon, [when] my manager got the call, and then in the evening it was finished.”
Therefore, in the space of a little over 24 hours from the announcement of Colapinto’s move to F1, drivers had been found both for his seat in F2, and his replacement’s seat in F3.
Fortunately, Stromsted was already “close by” in Italy, as he “was supposed to be here just to have a look and see for next year with another team.”
As a result, he had “done sim before and was ready,” as he told Formula Scout at Monza. Furthermore, he knew the Spanish outfit well from their time together racing in Spanish F4 in 2022 and 2023 [below].
Stromsted, who is expected to move up to F3 in 2025, took it as “a good opportunity just to learn about the car and how the championship works because in [F3], you don’t have a lot of driving time,” he explained.
His weekend got off to a promising start with 12th in free practice, but the Friday afternoon qualifying session was “a big mess,” as he put it.
“The engine was overheating in the pit lane so when everyone went out, the engine didn’t want to start because it was too hot, so I had to wait a bit. When it eventually started, everyone was gone, so I was alone, [meaning] I lost the slipstream, which is very important here in Monza.”
Consequently, he ended up 12th and last but one in his qualifying group, and to make matters worse, was one of many to be handed a four-place grid penalty for driving unnecessarily slowly.
To round off a trying weekend, Stromsted was penalised for colliding with Tommy Smith on the last lap, earning three penalty points on his licence, and finishing his debut outing in the Parabolica gravel trap, although he was still classified as a finisher, albeit in 23rd and last place.
As Goethe looks forward to his next F2 outing in Baku, Stromsted returns to action in FREC this weekend in Imola, with the goal of “finishing on a high out there and having some good results at the end of the season.”