Franco Colapinto has explained how a “sudden” surprise at the Azerbaijan grand prix helped him keep Lewis Hamilton behind.
The Williams driver finished eighth in Baku in just his second Grand Prix, scoring four points and becoming the first Argentine to do so since Carlos Reutemann at the 1982 Brazilian GP.
Colapinto beat seven times world champion Hamilton, the Mercedes driver making the long climb through the field from pit lane after taking on a fresh power unit, and received a warm welcome in parc ferme.
However, the race didn't start off smoothly for Colapinto as he lost some pace in the early stages which resulted in tyre wear, before a sudden change in speed later resulted in his race going completely wrong.
“I kept managing myself, doing what the team was telling me to do, but then we stopped it and after that [Nico] Hulkenberg overtook me, we started to move ahead without carrying any more weight,” he told the media. RacingNews365.
“That’s when the front tyres started to shake, because they were wide open for the first few laps, my front tyres were completely worn out and I lost traction.
“They suddenly woke up, they switched on again and I started to get a lot more grip, and that’s why I finished the race strongly, got a good lap time and overtook Lewis and built a gap.
“Halfway through I didn’t understand what was happening with the tyres, but with the experience of handling them, I just have to keep learning and understand how much difference there is between the medium tyre and the hard tyre.
“It was a fantastic race and I’m very proud to have scored points for the team with both cars.”
Colapinto repaid the trust
Colapinto's four points, plus the six scored by Alex Albon for seventh place, were Williams' best two-car result since it finished fifth-eighth with Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa at the 2016 Spanish GP.
With four points Colapinto quadrupled the single point achieved by Logan Sargeant during his time at the team, and helped Williams move above Alpine into eighth place in the constructors' standings.
“He showed a lot of faith and trust in giving me the seat,” he said of team boss James Vowles' decision.
“It was very difficult [choice] That's something a lot of people don't understand, but I hope I can show in Formula One what I'm capable of.
“The opportunity James has given me is helping me to show that I am trying to learn fast, I have two races, FP1 at Silverstone and [2023] I felt really good at the Abu Dhabi test, but to score points in my second race with the little mileage I got is really positive.”