Last Updated on October 9 2024, 10:45 am

There’s something about the audacity of prodigious talent which excuses the apparent clumsiness of a rookie stepping on established toes. Lewis Hamilton demonstrated this back in 2007 when in his first full season with McLaren he went toe to toe with reigning double world champion Fernando Alonso.

The result was not pretty. Firstly both drivers were level at the end of the season, but their infighting had allowed Kimi Raikkonen to slip past the pair and claim the drivers’ championship by a single point.

Ayrton Senna marched into Alain Prost’s McLaren team in 1988 and immediately took the fight to the then double world champion. In what was the most dominant F1 car before last seasons RB19, Senna outclassed his experienced team mate to take the first of his three world titles.

 

 

Albon sees off all comers

Alex Albon has been sanguine since he joined the Williams team. His torrid time at Red Bull saw the British-Thai driver replaced by Sergio Perez in 2021 with Alex taking a year out of F1 until Williams came calling the following year.

Since then he has ruled the roost in Grove. He saw off Nicholas Latiffi in 2022 and more recently American Logan Sargeant was put to the sword as team principal James Vowels decided to replace the Floridian after yet another crash during FP3 in Zandvoort this year.

With Carlos Sainz on board to partner Albon next year, Vowels turned to the Williams reserve driver Franco Colapinto to complete the remaining nine races this year until the Spaniard arrives for 2025.

Just as rookie Oliver Bearman impressed on his maiden F1 weekend for Ferrari, Colapinto has been raising eyebrows in the F1 paddock since he stepped into the Williams for the Italian Grand Prix. On debut in Monza, the young Argentinian came through the field from eighteenth to finish an impressive P12 and next time out in Baku he not only made Q3 but out qualified team mate Albon by 3/10ths of a second.

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Colapinto ‘brave’ move

The fact that Albon’s engineers made a mistake meaning he was unable to complete his second run in Q3 may have slightly tainted Colapinto’s achievement on the Saturday in Baku, yet the former F2 competitor has arrived in F1 and looks comfortable scoring four points in Baku coming home behind his tea mate in P8.

Unchallenged by a team mate for almost three seasons, Albon will have been taken by surprise at the speed of his latest rival across the garage. Next up in Singapore, Franco was fractions of a second slower than Alex in qualifying as the Williams pair were the best of the rest starting outside the top ten.

When the lights went out in the City State, Colapinto made a stellar move into turn one as the rookie set about claiming the second lot of points in his short lived career. He ran ahead of team mate Albon until the ex-Red Bull driver was forced to retire and missed out on another point after duelling with Sergio Perez for night on thirty laps, finally coming home in P11.

At the start in Marina Bay, Franco passed three cars in one fell swoop as he dived down the inside – Ricciardo-esque – making the late braking work as he claimed the apex with ease. One of the drivers overtaken was Alex Albon who angrily described the move over team radio as a “dive-bomb.”

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Franco “in his head”

Colapinto overtook three cars in one go after the lights went out in Marina Bay, bravely diving down the inside but slowing his car down enough to make the apex. An angry Albon, one of the victims, called it a ‘divebomb’ over the radio and asked what he was doing.

Speaking to Motorsport.com, Colapionto’s former boss Sander Dorsman, who runs the MP Motorsport team and worked with Colapinto in FRECA, F3 and F2, was ecstatic over his protege’s “fantastic” move. He also questioned the validity of Albon’s criticism claiming they “made no sense” and suggests it demonstrates Franco is already in Alex Albon’s head.

“I especially thought that action at the start was fantastic of course,” says Dorsman. “That is exactly how we know Franco, he goes all out.

“He simply does not care about reputations and what really struck me there was that Albon immediately came on the radio. Something that actually made no sense at all, but it does show that it seems that Franco was already a bit in his head. So that is interesting.”

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F1 rookie can’t drive straight

Ex-Alpine boss Otmar Szafnaeur had expressed concern about the Williams appointment to replace Sargeant suggesting it could take him five or six races before he’s comfortable in the car. Yet thew Romanian was forced to accept his fears were unfounded as the rookie appears now to be at ease in his slot ion the F1 grid.

Yet after his first time out the Argentinian was forced to admit he didn’t fully understand the steering wheel and therefore failed to deliver on a number instructions from the pit wall.

“There are many red buttons that are better not to touch and there are other buttons that you have to touch. The thing is that you go very fast and at the beginning, since I was not used to the speed at which things happen, it was difficult for me to focus on which button to touch,” Franco explained.

“And then I had a guy on the radio who was talking to me every 5 seconds and at the beginning I couldn’t even go straight because of the grey, I would go into the grass. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out which button to touch.”

The battle of the Williams team mates is set to resume in just over a weeks time as is the fight amongst the new pair at RB for the right to drive alongside Max Verstappen in 2025. Liam Lawson has replaced Daniel Ricciardo and Red Bull advisor Dr. Helmut Marko has said the final six races of the season will allow the team to evaluate the New Zealander against his team mate Yuki Tsunoda.

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Latest move by FIA to solve track limits problems

As Mohammed Ben Sulayem took his place as head of the FIA in the Place de Concorde, Lewis Hamilton was left ruling what might have been in the Formula One 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The former Emirati rally driver was to become the first head of the FIA with no F1 background since the infamous Jean-Marie Balestre took office back in 1978.

Ben Sulayem had campaigned for the presidency under the banner of the “FIA for members” amongst its global 240 national memberships, many of whom felt the focus of the organisation was too F1 centric.

Since being elected Ben Sulayem has upset just about everyone at some point in the F1 paddock with his early campaign against drivers wearing jewellery ending in farce as Lewis Hamilton produced a sick note stating it would be detrimental to his health were he to remove his nose pin during track sessions… READ MORE