Colapinto ‘proud and extremely happy’ after his first day driving for Williams

Franco Colapinto cut a very happy figure after completing his Friday running in Monza, with Williams's new recruit saying he was "proud" of his first outing as a full-time F1 driver.

Having been parachuted in between back-to-back races to replace Logan Sargeant, the Argentinian was up against it with limited time to practice in the simulator ahead of his first full weekend behind the wheel of the FW46.

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But he completed plenty of laps in both practice sessions, kept his car out of the barriers and – bar a couple of trips through the gravel – had a relatively trouble-free day, coming home 17th in both sessions. But crucially, in FP2 he was only two tenths of a second behind his much more experienced team mate – pushing Alex Albon much closer than many expected.

“It was great, I’m really happy about it,” Colapinto said afterwards. “Luckily I could enjoy a lot today, more than going for lap times, I just tried to focus on myself and enjoy the day.

“It went quite well, I was quite careful in FP1, I just wanted to put the laps in. I’m starting to understand the tyre a little bit better but I still miss, you know, on long runs I’m trying to understand how to keep the tyre alive for longer.

“It was a good first day, of course we need to keep working in the car, try to make the car a bit more suitable for how I drive it. But we are going well, in FP2 I felt a lot more comfortable with the car, I was trying to drive it a little bit more on the limit and I was a bit more consistent and had a bit more confidence in the high speed.”

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Monza is a high-speed, low downforce circuit and with track temperatures exceeding 50 Degrees Celsius, conditions were tricky – especially considering the new track surface.

As Kevin Magnussen showed in FP2 when he spun off and crashed, even experienced drivers can get it wrong here – which made Colapinto’s efforts all the more impressive.

“I am quite confident, I just need to find a bit more the limit, sometimes I push a little bit, sometimes I don’t carry enough speed or brake enough, so it’s about finding the limit a little bit more in the high speed,” he continued.

“The tyre I think there is a sweet spot, which is very difficult to understand – if you are above that or below that, it’s a very fine window.”

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The Argentinian didn’t seem too bothered by the heat in the cockpit nor the physicality of wrestling an F1 car around this circuit, although he did admit that Monza is a kind place to start in that regard, given the lack of corners around this famous track. And he also confessed to not quite managing to work out how to drink from the cockpit – one of many small details he needs to iron out across the weekend.

But the real test will come tomorrow when he has to push on the limit in qualifying with the car as light as it will be all weekend – but for now, Colapinto remains “very proud and extremely happy” about how his first Friday as an F1 driver went.

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