Franco Colapinto has his swagger back. The 22-year-old Argentine out-qualified Alpine teammate Pierre Gasly in Miami and drove to a career-best seventh place, his finest F1 result yet and a clear signal that the slump that shadowed his early 2025 has lifted.
The context matters. Roughly 600,000 fans turned out in Argentina for an Alpine demonstration run — a country starved of grand prix glory since the Fangio era now has a genuine reason to believe again. Colapinto carried that energy into Hard Rock Stadium and translated it into points, surviving an early scrape with Lewis Hamilton to deliver the kind of composed, opportunistic drive Alpine has been waiting on.
For an American audience, Miami did its job: it produced a breakout star storyline on US soil. The next test is whether Colapinto can back it up in Imola and turn a moment into momentum.
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