Franco Colapinto, Williams, Monza, 2024

2024 Formula 1 driver rankings #17: Franco Colapinto

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Surely nobody had Franco Colapinto down as a driver who might make his Formula 1 debut last year – never mind make such an impression he would be courted by the likes of Red Bull and Alpine.

Colapinto’s debut was a case study in the value of positioning yourself for an opportunity and taking advantage of it. He had a matter of days to prepare himself for his grand prix debut at Monza after Williams terminated Logan Sargeant’s contract.

Despite not being fully comfortable in the FW46, which he’d driven just once previously in practice at Silverstone, Colapinto impressed Williams enormously on his debut. His first qualifying performance was scruffy, but he gained six places in the race while in some considerable discomfort in an unfamiliar cockpit.

Remarkably, he then picked up points in two of the next three races. He pounced on Nico Hulkenberg for 10th in Baku, then gained two more places after a late crash. He struggled for fitness somewhat in Singapore, yet still came home 11th after a gutsy first-lap move, then bagged 10th at the Circuit of the Americas.

Franco Colapinto

Best Worst
GP start 8 20 (x2)
GP finish 8 14
Points 5

After being harshly penalised in Mexico for a collision with Liam Lawson, Colapinto endured a more difficult end to the season, and contributed to Williams’s growing parts shortage. He crashed twice in one day at Interlagos, admittedly in very tough conditions, then suffered another heavy impact during qualifying at Las Vegas. His retirements from the final two races were largely the work of other drivers, though he did give Williams a further headache by damaging his floor in Abu Dhabi.

Colapinto’s nine races in F1 so far have shown pace but also some raggedness. Nonetheless if he can polish out the mistakes, as other rookies before him have done, there is clear potential here.

RaceFans’ driver rankings are based partly on the scores awarded to drivers for their performances in each round as well as other factors.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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15 comments on “2024 Formula 1 driver rankings #17: Franco Colapinto”

  1. He competed less than half season, so I don’t think having him ranked among full-season drivers is necessarily fair due to lack of comparability.

  2. It’s unfortunate the second part of his stint was so affected by crashes. He shows some promise, and it’d be a shame if he doesn’t get another chance to see how he does over a full season. We’ll see how Sainz does this year, but Colapinto has already taken some shine off of Albon’s reputation, which had gotten quite inflated.

  3. Colapinto was put in a really tough position replacing Sargeant mid-season: he suffered from Williams’ decision not to switch them last winter.

    From that tough position – a newbie starting midseason – he exceeded expectations and was an immediate improvement over Sargeant, especially in raw pace. Questions marks remain and neither Alpine nor Racing Bulls were interested in giving him a seat… but we’re all excited to see his improvement next year.

    However, I don’t think his performance earned this ranking. Colapinto was a pleasant surprise, while Ricciardo was a disappointment – but Ricciardo had fewer crashes, more consistency, and higher highs.

    He smashed his debut races and (like Bearman) is one to watch next year as he grows into F1, but I don’t think he was on balance better than even the weaker experienced drivers… … … yet.

    Bring on 2025!

  4. One of my defining memories of 2024 was repeatedly watching Callapinto on board camera throughout the Baku weekend -specifically at the right left chicane that folows the super narrow castle corner. Lap after lap, every time, he would exit the right hander slightly sideways in a subtle 4 wheel drift, steering left throughout the 2nd half of the right hander. Then, to trigger his turn in to the left hander, he wouldn’t reallly move the steering wheel from that position at all. He would just tap the brake, and the weight transfer would grip up those fronts, transitioning from a 4 wheel sideways drift into a sharp turn in the opposite direction, without steering input.

    It was sublime. And seemingly pretty quick. And he just kept doing pulling it off. I’ve not seen that consistently done in F1 before. Sadly, I don’t think anyone else noticed it at all.

  5. He had a couple of crashes but that’s normal for a rookie who doesn’t know where the limits are yet, but what’s remarkable is that he’s been very close to Albon’s pace from the very first race. Sainz will be a good measure of the level of both Colapinto and Albon. With that said, Vowles wasted the season by giving Logan another chance. Colapinto’s debut proves again that teams have no idea how good drivers are until they test them in real conditions and that it doesn’t take 20 races to show potential.

    1. What annoys me about william’s decision last year is that it was clear sargeant wasn’t good enough for f1, so it’s not a problem about not knowing how good drivers are until you test them, it was more like: can’t be worse than sargeant, let’s give it a shot, else we try another driver.

  6. Yes (@come-on-kubica)
    21st January 2025, 20:36

    It’s a shame he’s not immediately in a seat next year as I think he was fairly impressive. He was on par with Albon more often than not. Doohan/Hadjar/Tsunoda are the 3 to watch to be replaced.

    1. I think performance wise it’d be pretty unfair to replace tsunoda, he’s outperformed all team mates he had since gasly; if hadjar turns out to be a superstar, he should replace lawson at red bull, and lawson and tsunoda are good enough for toro rosso, until another highly rated driver comes around.

      1. Yes (@come-on-kubica)
        22nd January 2025, 16:19

        @esploratore1

        I don’t think Tsunoda has shown anything other than mediocrity after 4 years in the sport. If it wasn’t for the Honda link Red Bull would have dropped him by now – I think red bull will care less throughout this season about Hondas wishes and unless Hadjar is horrificly slow I can see Tsunoda getting the boot.

  7. I don’t think its fair to compare him or even to lower his rank because of his crashes, he had 2 big ones , the brazil with the worse conditions of the year and las vegas, both were his mistakes but the others are not. He was crashed by hulkenberg and piastri in the last 2 races and had to DNF. He showed really good pace and he was very bold in some parts of his stint, something that’s very necesary in F1 these days, is a shame he is not on the grid this year.

  8. Having watched him on F3 and F2, it’s clear he’s quick and talented. But my impression is that in feeder series he was still a bit inconsistent, with great weekends but also with more off weekends and lack of consistency hurting him on long run for the championship. I feel he had a bit of the same trend in F1. Really quick, talented and impressive on his day, but still need to mature a bit compared with a Bortoleto or Aron. But he was always miles better than Sargent ever was, and clearly deserve a shot in the future. But i would say the best would be for him to get a reserve role in F1 and try to improve consistency to fight for the F2 title first and to not rush into F1 and risk being too exposed and maybe lose his seat if mistakes happens due to lack of experience. For ne he needs just a bit of polishing.

    1. He’s got a reserve driver role at Alpine, so if Flavio is sensible, then Franco is about to have exactly the opportunity you recommend (for the F1 part, at least).

  9. Rocket and stick spring to mind but that would be unfair, you can maybe teach a driver of his age to not crash but if hes not quick at that age, he never will be. He was quick and bullish and in a limitless budget era would’ve been picked up, even if it was just for re-energising Argentina’s love for F1. He does show that the yardstick of winning F2 and F3 is only one way to gauge ability in F1. Anyone remember Vandoorne. Vandoorme, i forget….

    1. Whilst I agree we cannot gauge a driver only by feeder series success, it’s also undeniable that there are trend of the ones which achieve success in both F2 and F3 rookie seasons to be more rounded and perform better in F1. The best ones of new generation come to mind as Leclerc , Norris, Russel , Piastri. All with great success and consistency on their rookie campaigns.

      1. 100%, but that is surely because generally they are the only ones who get a chance. There has to be a better measure than ‘but he won the league’. Maybe a Moneyball moment is needed?

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