Colapinto hit by mechanical failure, triggers first red flag in Bahrain | OneFootball

Franco Colapinto had a troublesome start on the first official day of preseason testing for Formula 1 in Bahrain. The Argentine driver caused the first red flag of the year after his Alpine A526 stopped due to a failure at the entrance to turn 8 of the Sakhir circuit.

The car came to a halt after an hour and a half of activity. Colapinto tried to restart it, but was unsuccessful, and a crane had to enter the track to tow it back to the pits. The team checked the single-seater and the Argentine was able to return to the track nearly an hour later, this time on medium compound tires, after having used hards at the time of the problem.

In his first stint, he set a time of 1m41.600s, which left him in last place among the 11 drivers who took to the track. Later, he improved to 1m40.330s, although he was unable to move up positions and finished as the driver with the fewest laps completed, with 28.

The session was led by Max Verstappen (Red Bull), with a time of 1m35.433s, followed by Oscar Piastri (McLaren) and George Russell (Mercedes).

Engine performance was once again in the spotlight. Both Colapinto and Pierre Gasly had voiced criticism last season about the lack of straight-line power. Now, Alpine is evaluating the behavior of the new mechanical package in a testing context that will continue throughout the week in Sakhir.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.