The F3 newcomer making good on his unusual career path

As a rookie on the FIA Formula 3 grid, lining up with series newcomer Van Amersfoort Racing, Franco Colapinto might have been unsure of where he’d end up at last weekend’s season opener at the Bahrain International Circuit. Whatever the 18-year-old was expecting, it wasn’t the pole position he took with his final attempt, overcoming earlier track limit violations to cement his spot at the head of the front row for Sunday’s feature race.

The Argentinian rookie has settled in well at VAR, the storied Dutch team that has previously run the likes of Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen and Callum Ilott in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship. And although he was only classified fifth in the Bahrain feature, courtesy of tyre struggles with his Pirelli rubber plus a five-second track limits penalty which knocked him out of the podium spots, Colapinto says it was a “super” opening weekend that was “better than expected, honestly”.

“The team did a really good job in the test but we were not expecting to be on pole I would say,” he confesses. “In free practice we were already really strong. We were looking for a top five, maybe a little bit better than that, but pole was looking like a difficult task.

“We did some tweaks to a car and it was really nice to drive. I did a good lap, I put a good lap together in the last attempt and it was amazing to be on pole in our first weekend together, first weekend of the team in F3. I'm a rookie and the team as well. It was just an awesome feeling to just put it together and be on pole in our debut together.

“I'm really happy to be here. I think it was a lot more than what we were expecting. So I'm just really proud of all the work that everyone has been doing to put us here.”

He might be new to F3, but Colapinto arrives with extensive sportscar experience from racing as the 'silver' in G-Drive Racing's LMP2 squad last year. His mammoth 2021 included full seasons in the European Le Mans Series - taking victory at Paul Ricard alongside team patron Roman Rusinov and Nyck de Vries - and Asian Le Mans Series, plus World Endurance Championship appearances at Spa and the Le Mans 24 Hours.

A busy 2021 for Colapinto included making his debut at the Le Mans 24 Hours

Photo by: Paul Foster

There was even a GT3 debut in the Spa 24 Hours, sharing a WRT Audi R8 LMS Evo with Benjamin Goethe - a fellow member of Jamie Campbell-Walter's Bullet Sports Management scheme. Colapinto also kept his toes in the single-seater pond with a full season of Formula Regional European, finishing sixth overall despite missing Monaco - where he was docked all of his qualifying times for a minor technical infringement.

That came after a 2020 campaign that began in the Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand, before finishing third in the Formula Renault Eurocup. It’s safe to say that Colapinto is happy to just have one series to focus on this season – and it’s one he’s been aiming to reach for several years.

“It was actually the thing that I really want to do since a few years ago,” the 2019 Spanish F4 champion explains. “I did two years of Formula Renault and then of course LMP2. That was I think one of the biggest experiences of my life in motorsport and I think it helped me a lot towards this year.

"Two minutes, you're happy, and then something happens and you cannot believe it. And it makes you really, really tough to have all these things going on in a year" Franco Colapinto

“It's just a complete different thing, F3 from LMP2. In LMP2 you're doing hundreds of laps per weekend. In F3, you're only doing two races, one quali and one free practice. And that's it. In quali, you're doing two push laps and then that's your weekend more or less finished.

“It's a completely different thing. I always wanted to do F3 and I'm so proud of Bullet, of VAR, who helped me to be here to keep trying to achieve my dreams and achieve what I’ve wanted do since I was young. I'm just so grateful for everyone helping me and supporting from Argentina.”

He says his “really useful experience” competing in multi-class sportscar racing with “so many emotions going on” has made him “really, really tough”, and ready to tackle F3 this year.

“Two minutes, you're happy, and then something happens and you cannot believe it,” he says. “And it makes you really, really tough to have all these things going on in a year. F3 is such a competitive championship, such a difficult championship to win.

Colapinto says racing in sportscars has made him more rounded

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

“I think this is one of the things that helped me the most [is] to know when you're happy, to know the feeling, to know what's happening, all the people supporting you and stuff. Then in your bad days, how to get up from those and how to be pushing to have a good weekend, the next race.

“That was one of the big challenges I had last year. It really helped me a lot to be with such a professional driver like Nyck de Vries. I learned a lot from Nyck – he’s a Formula E champion, F2, and he's so professional and racing for Mercedes and I learned so much stuff from him during the last season racing in the same car. It was a really useful experience. I learned a lot and of course, it's gonna help me in the future.”

The biggest difference both Colapinto and the VAR team - also making its F2 bow this year after taking over HWA Racelab's entry - has needed to tackle is tyre degradation. Switching from the hardy Goodyear tyres used in ELMS to the far more sensitive Pirellis in F3 is “tricky”, while changeable track conditions also proved a challenge.

“It's tricky with these tyres, it's very, very different to what I was used to before,” he says. “I have to keep learning about it, about the degradation, about how to be careful with those tyres to not hurt them too much. And of course, the team has to learn how they can help me with the car, where I need a bit more of the car as well to help with the tyre. It's just a lot of work going on behind the scenes.

“But of course, we had those days of testing to just learn a little bit more. And then in the race weekend, the track is changing so much because you have the rubber of F1, the rubber of F2, of the Porsche, so it's a complete different track when you're going out again.

“Every time the car has different balance, the car has different issues, so every change you're doing to improve one thing, maybe you're going too much to the other side or maybe it was not enough for the track conditions. That's the tricky part I would say of F3, you go out for free practice and the track is really green and then you go out on quali after F1 and the track is full of rubber and you’re two seconds quicker.

“You have to adapt really quickly to the conditions and that is I think one of the things that I learned from last year in endurance. You have to adapt really quickly to changing conditions and I think it helped me for this weekend. Of course, we keep learning and we have some more days of testing coming up to keep doing it. And I think it's our biggest focus right now is in the race pace.”

Changing track conditions between sessions pose a set-up challenge

Photo by: Formula Motorsport Ltd

With one weekend behind him, Colapinto now has a long wait until the next F3 round next month in Imola, although the series will host two testing sessions in Jerez and Barcelona in the interim period.

Beyond that, Colapinto shares the same dream as many of his peers – to reach Formula 1 one day. Though his home country produced one of the all-time greats in five-time world champion Juan Manuel Fangio, the last Argentinian to drive in the top tier was Gaston Mazzacane in 2001, and that was before Colapinto was even born.

"You have adapt really quickly to the conditions and that is I think one of the things that I learned from last year in endurance. You have to adapt really quickly to changing conditions and I think it helped me for this weekend" Franco Colapinto

“The end goal is for most of the drivers the same, to drive in Formula 1 one day when they have that feeling of driving such a quick car for a factory team,” he says. “That's why I started racing, to achieve that goal one day. But of course, it's a really long way to go.

“It's a good start to be in F3 and do well here, it's my first step. Doing well here, do well this year, get some good points, some good podiums, good races, try to impress the people and then let's see what's next...”

Colapinto is aiming to become the first Argentinian F1 driver in over 20 years

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images