By Gura Garcia
21 Oct 2024, 2:53 PM EDT
The Argentine driver of the Williams team, Franco Colapinto, managed to score points for the second time in 4 races who has been in Formula 1 so far in the 2024 season, and did so once again with a great performance, this time at the Circuit of the Americas in the city of Austin, Texas at the United States Grand Prix. Colapinto started from position 15 on the drivers’ grid and little by little he advanced positions, thanks to the hard tire strategy at the start of the race, unlike the medium ones chosen by most of the teams.
“It was a very difficult Saturday for us and we knew we had the pace in the car to be strong and have a good race. That’s why I decided to start with the hard tires, to have some clean air,” Colapinto began.
“Maybe it wasn’t ideal, but I knew that having the pace we had, it was going to be better for us to take advantage that rhythm in the clean air. And when we had it we were very strong and when we put in the means, we flew. It was great to see how we recovered and came back stronger after a very difficult day yesterday. “It was a tough Saturday, but they deserved the points today.”
Duel with Fernando Alonso
Colapinto reached the points zone by overtaking the Asturian and former world champion, the Spanish Fernando Alonso, on the 23rd lap and then thanks to other pit stops he managed to place himself in seventh position in the order of drivers, before being overtaken by the Mexican Sergio “Checo” Pérez, who was using much newer tires.
The Williams driver stopped in the pits after 39 laps to change tires and returned in 12th position in the race, maintaining distance from the Haas man, Kevin Magnussen, and then attacked Pierre Gasly of Alpine, whom he overtook on the 46th lap to once again opt for the points in the race.
The fastest lap… Almost
Not satisfied with that, he was able to put his foot on the accelerator in what was the fastest lap of the race up to that point.with a time of 1m37s611, but at the end Alpine decided to call Esteban Ocon to the pits to put soft tires on him and snatch the extra point from the Argentine.
“I am happy with the car I had. We made important steps compared to the sprint race, which was the most important thing. I think Haas and RB were very strong this weekend and they showed it, but we didn’t give up. It was a complicated weekend that obviously after qualifying at the back was getting a little more complicated, but I was sure that I could have a good race today,” he continued. “I got up thinking that I was going to have a chance to score and we did,” summarized the 21-year-old driver.
Colapinto placed a lot of emphasis on the importance of taking advantage to score points in the championshipespecially because of how complicated it is to finish in the top 10 for Williams: “We have to defend those points because everything has to go very perfect so that we can be in the points and no mistakes can be made,” said the Albiceleste driver.
A total war with “Checo” Pérez
“It was entertaining. Obviously he did a great job. It came with much younger tires, so there’s not much to do there. I was doing my career and he was doing his. We were on different strategies and we found ourselves on the track, but it is always nice to fight against Checo. He is someone who runs very cleanly and we have to continue for everything in Mexico now,” he concluded.
Keep Reading:
Sergio “Checo” Pérez worried about the Mexican Grand Prix – Real America News
“It was a complicated race”: Checo Pérez after finishing seventh in the United States GP – Real America News
There will be ‘F1 Fan Zone’ at the Mexican Grand Prix and we will tell you all the information about it – La Opinión