Following last week’s Hungarian Grand Prix, which saw Lando Norris take victory ahead of Oscar Piastri, Pirelli has organized a tyre test at the track. During the final day of Pirelli tyre testing, Franco Colapinto crashed his Alpine, halting the morning session at the Hungaroring.
The crash occurred at turn 11 which features a high speed kink before a heavy braking zone in turn 12. Colapinto’s teammate, Pierre Gasly, was set to take over running for the afternoon session. However, this can’t happen now that the car has severe damage.
The bad run for Franco Colapinto keeps going
Following a few disappointing weekends of Grand Prix without points finishes and bad luck, Colapinto’s confidence has now taken another beating. A high speed crash on a day where completing laps is more important than completing them fast. The positive takeaway however is that the Argentine driver is OK and didn’t sustain any injuries.
Team Update
During Day 2 of Pirelli Tyre Testing at the Hungaroring this morning, Franco Colapinto had an incident at Turn 11. Franco was assessed on site at the medical centre and is OK.
— BWT Alpine Formula One Team (@AlpineF1Team) August 6, 2025
Franco Colapinto replaced Jack Doohan at Alpine after six races of the 2025 season and hasn’t managed to finish a Grand Prix higher than P13 in the seven races he has competed in since. The driver also doesn’t have a contract for next season yet, and Alpine can replace him just as easily as Doohan was.
While this might seem like a dire situation, there are a few redeeming statistics that aren’t visible necessarily. Colapinto has been pretty close to his teammate in qualifying and was even ahead of him in Hungary last weekend. This type of pace could be the thing that keeps him in contention if he doesn’t improve during the races themselves.
Formula 1’s preparation for 2026 continues
The Hungaroring tyre test takes place over the course of 2 days with Paul Aron driving the Alpine car yesterday and completing the program, satisfying the team. Other teams competing in this test are Ferrari, McLaren and Racing Bulls, sharing the track at times with modifies cars to better simulate the type of stress the tyres will endure with the upcoming 2026 cars.
Mega job @PaulAron16 👌
Wrapping up the first day of testing at the Hungaroring 🇭🇺 pic.twitter.com/l2ztuUC0on
— BWT Alpine Formula One Team (@AlpineF1Team) August 5, 2025
The Pirelli tyre test at the Hungaroring isn’t the first we’ve seen this season as cars also completed a program in Barcelona to prepare for the upcoming season. Here we also saw several teams taking modified cars to the track during a non-race week.
Not only will we see more tyre testing throughout the final legs of the 2025 season, but we will also see these new tyres during F1 weekends in Free Practice. Do you think the new 2026 tyres will be an improvement over the current ones? Make your opinion known in the comment section.
