Franco Colapinto stood in the media pen at Monza on Sunday and cried. The Alpine driver had just finished ninth in the Italian Grand Prix, worth two points, but the number that mattered to him was the one he had lost.

“A tough race. Very frustrating. I had a great opportunity and I didn’t take it. I’m sad about that,” Colapinto told ESPN, his voice breaking.

“A great race and a big mistake. I wasted a very important opportunity for me and for the team. I need to learn from this.”

From seventh on the grid to third at the restart

The chance was real. Colapinto had qualified seventh and was still in touch with the leaders when Charles Leclerc crashed at the Parabolica on Lap 2 and brought out the red flag. Alpine timed the electric deployment perfectly: by dumping the last of his battery, the 23-year-old caught a lifting Oscar Piastri and moved into fourth as the field filed into the pit lane.

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At the restart he went further, briefly moving past Max Verstappen for third behind George Russell, who had inherited pole. For a handful of corners, an Alpine podium at the home of Ferrari looked genuinely on the table.

The mistake at Lesmo 1

It ended almost immediately. Verstappen fought back around the outside and forced Colapinto wide at the first Lesmo. The Argentine dropped onto the gravel and rejoined outside the points, as low as 15th according to the official race report. The path back was a lonely one, and by the checkered flag he had climbed to ninth.

The gap to the other Alpine

Kimi Antonelli won the race from 19th on the grid for Mercedes, with Russell second and Verstappen third. Gasly brought the other Alpine home seventh, two places ahead of his teammate.

That gap between the two Alpines is the reference point that stung. On a day when the team’s polesitter finished in the points, its faster car in the race had thrown away a podium fight of its own making.

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Colapinto stayed in the media pen after most drivers had moved on, red-eyed, repeating the same idea in different words. The team put him in a position to score on merit at a circuit where Alpine had no business fighting for the podium, and he knows it.

The next race is the Spanish Grand Prix at the newly built Madring in Madrid on 13 September.

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