Franco Colapinto had a bad first qualifying in Formula 2: he finished 16th and analyzed where his car went wrong

In its first racing weekend of the 2024 season at Formula 2the Argentine pilot Franco Colapinto he placed 16th in the ranking that took place this Thursday on the International Circuit of Bahrainto Sakhir, and from that position he will start both in sprint race Friday as in The main test on Saturday of the category that accompanies the Formula 1.

On board car number 12 of the MP Motorsport team, the driver born 20 years ago in Pilar took 1:42.392 to complete his 12 laps of the 5,412 meter track as best he could and remained 696 thousandths behind the Indian Kushi Mainifrom Invicta Racing, who took the pole position for the first race of the year.

Colapinto, who finished fourth in the championship last year Formula 3he had done a truly exceptional job in the session training happened previously: he had finished second, with a time of 1:45.236, 137 thousandths behind the Frenchman Isack Hadjar (Campos Racing), who had been the fastest in that heat.

However, with track conditions cooler than those of training which allowed him to significantly improve his records, the driver of the Williams Academy He couldn’t stop his good performance and now he has to try to advance from far back both in the sprint race, which will take place on Friday starting at 11.15 am, and in the main race, which will take place on Saturday at 7.30 pm.

After qualifying, Colapinto was dissatisfied with the performance of his new vehicle. “It’s not superior aerodynamically, we skate a lot more, we have less total load. But all the teams are adapting, you have to find where the lap goes in each car,” he assessed. And he added: “We have to continue working to find something more with the soft tyre, it’s the first race and there are many during the year.”

From the eighth starting row Colapinto will fight to get closer to the avant-garde men. Behind Kushi Maini in Thursday’s standings was his Invicta Racing teammate, Brazilian Gabriel Bortoleto, Formula 3 champion in 2023, who trailed the Indian by 219 thousandths.

Further back Hadjar, the Barbadian Zane Maloney (Rodin Motorsport) and the Norwegian Dennis Hauger, Colapinto’s teammate. Completing the top 10 were Japanese Ritomo Miyata (Rodin Motorsport), Englishman Zak O’Sullivan (Art Grand Prix), Brazilian Enzo Fittipaldi (Van Amersfoort Racing), Frenchman Victor Martins (Art Grand Prix ) and the Englishman Taylor Barnard (PHM AIX Racing).