Source: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
[Sabasports] The British Grand Prix was Franco Colapinto’s sixth race with the Alpine team. During the qualifying session last Saturday, he retired in Q1 due to hitting the wall. After that, he had to start the race from the pit lane due to a new power unit. However, before the race even began, he stopped in the pit lane after the warm-up lap to change tires from intermediate to hard, but the car suffered a failure afterward and couldn’t leave the pit lane, resulting in an immediate retirement. According to Alpine’s official statement, the issue was related to the “powertrain system” or “gearbox failure,” without mentioning human error. However, several motorsport bloggers and influential accounts cited reports from the paddock, claiming that Colapinto actually burned out the clutch due to a mistake when starting from the pit lane. They noted this was the second time this season he had experienced a similar issue and questioned whether his operation constituted a “very serious basic mistake.” The information came from the editor of Racing News365, though it hasn’t been confirmed by the team or the race organizers. The editor said that if he sees Colapinto at the Spa circuit in Belgium, he would find it very surprising.