Not much went right for the Alpine team in Monaco, with neither driver able to score in Sunday’s Grand Prix. Franco Colapinto at least saw the flag in 13th place, but Pierre Gasly’s afternoon ended early when he crashed into the back of Yuki Tsunoda.
The team knew the race would be difficult, given both drivers had exited Qualifying in Q1, with Gasly 18th and Colapinto P20. They opted to start Gasly on the medium tyres and his team mate on the hards, hoping Colapinto could come into play and back up the pack to allow Gasly to escape.
But the team work never came into play, with Gasly hitting the back of Tsunoda’s Red Bull coming into the Nouvelle Chicane. He managed to limp his car back to the pits despite a broken front wheel, but the damage was too extensive for any hope of Alpine repairing his A525, and the Frenchman was forced into retirement.
“I didn’t expect Yuki [Tsunoda] to move under braking out of the tunnel, [he] made a mistake the corner before so I was very close,” Gasly explained. “Every lap he was braking on the right, this lap he braked on the left and I went to the normal line and he moved back onto the racing line but it was too late. Yeah, that’s quite sad.
2025 Monaco Grand Prix: Gasly out of the race after crashing into Tsunoda
“[It’s] just painful for the whole team. We just need to understand what we lacked in Qualifying, I think that is what really cost us. Today was a bit of a gamble but I would have preferred to race until the end for the guys.”
Colapinto was poised to help his team mate, but instead had to do the best he could with a tricky strategy, running the hard tyre first and then the mediums twice. He found himself held up in the queue behind the Williams cars, but managed to finish the race in 13th.
“Starting from Quali in P20, it is just very tricky here to enter the points. P13 was kind of the maximum we could have done, we just started on the wrong tyre and trying to help Pierre but Pierre’s race was quite short,” Colapinto said.
Colapinto gained valuable experience in Monaco
“[We] did a lot of laps on the second medium, made our race very tricky. Some people undercut us before so yeah. Difficult race. Overall, just need to work towards the next races.”
It was valuable experience for the Argentine racer, in just his second weekend with Alpine. He’s now experienced one of the most difficult street tracks on the calendar, but will be in more familiar territory next weekend on a traditional track in Barcelona.
But with Racing Bulls, Haas and Williams all scoring in Monaco, Alpine have lost further ground in the Championship. They sit ninth, just one point ahead of Kick Sauber.
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