Franco Colapinto's Monaco Q2 Exit Leaves Driver Perplexed and Frustrated

Franco Colapinto completed the qualifying session for the 2026 Monaco Grand Prix and secured 14th place on the starting grid for the race. Despite the initial improvement from his 19th place position in the morning third practice session, the Argentine driver was dissatisfied with the performance and balance of his Alpine car.

In the press conference after the Q2 session, the 23-year-old from Buenos Aires Province pointed to the dynamic behavior of the A526, specifically highlighting alarming instability in the braking system.

"The car feels very disconnected, locking up a lot at the front. When you don't feel very good with the car, I think you lose a lot of time. In the faster corners, the first sector was good. In the second sector and the slower corners, I've been struggling a lot this weekend. The car feels very disconnected, locking up a lot at the front. When I move it to the rear, it locks at the back; when I move it to the front, it locks at the front. It's a very strange disconnect and we haven't been able to figure it out," Colapinto explained.

The level shown this year is above the standards of the 2025 season, however the Argentine driver regretted not being able to extract the car's true potential to break into the top ten. Colapinto explained the mathematical gap to the leaders as being due to that lack of fine-tuning in the setup:

"We took a small step forward, but on a track like Monaco, when you don't have that confidence, it gets complicated. So I was very close and I think with that bad feeling I had all weekend, I ended up, surely, two tenths off Q3, or a little less. It's good, but obviously it's a shame because the car had what it took to get through if we had set it up properly," Colapinto said.

The Pilar native tried to turn the page quickly, showing optimism about moving up positions in Sunday's demanding race and about the next round of the world championship calendar, scheduled for Sunday, June 14:

"We'll work to be a little better tomorrow and come back stronger in Barcelona," Colapinto concluded.