A problem with Mercedes power unit brought Colapinto’s last F1 race to a premature end

Completing his last outing with Williams, Franco Colapinto’s race took a premature end after an issue with the Mercedes power unit forced the Argentinean to retire from the season finale.

Williams endured another tough race at the Yas Marina Circuit. Franco Colapinto, who will leave the Grove-based outfit after having replaced Logan Sargeant at Monza, didn’t have a last race with Williams to remember.

The Argentinean driver was hit by McLaren driver Oscar Piastri early on in the race following the short virtual safety car intervention. That gave him a puncture, and by the time he’d limped home for new tyres and come back out at the back, the team then had to retire due to a PU problem.

His team-mate Alexander Albon started from the back of the field, but managed to fight his way up into the top ten. Although he looked on for a points-paying position, his ambitious strategy with an early stop saw him struggle in the closing stages of the 58-lap race. The London-born driver failed to hold Fernando Alonso and Piastri at bay, and finished down in P11.

Albon commented. “With ten laps to go, I thought it would be hard to hold on. The tyre’s grip stayed quite strong, but the temperatures just dropped off.

“Once the track started to cool down, I couldn’t drive quickly enough to keep the temperature in the tyres, so it felt like qualifying laps from about 25 laps in until the end, making it a very physical race.

“It’s a shame not to reward the team with a points finish. My consensus of the season is that it’s been one of missed opportunities. It’s easy to focus on this latter end of the season and the incidents, but realistically, we started with the car overweight when we should’ve been fighting for points.

“We bought one major upgrade, as our plan was always to focus on the future and at that point, a lot of teams naturally overtook us. In the end, I’m not too upset because I’m here for the long term and I know as a team we’re not interested in being the best of the midfield, we’re putting in the work now for the future to be back fighting for wins and championships and I believe in this journey we’re on.

“Thank you to Franco for being a great teammate. He earned his place in F1 during these remaining races and I’m sure I’ll be seeing him somewhere on the grid soon,” the Thai driver concluded.

Commenting on his final race with Williams, Colapinto noted: “Retiring the car was not the way I wanted to end the final race of the season. I had a good start and was trying to get through the race, but Piastri hit me which caused a puncture and some damage.

“We still had good pace after we changed tyres but unfortunately, we had to retire the car due to a suspected PU issue. The last couple of races have been really unlucky for me. It hasn’t been the end to the season that I wanted but that’s part of Formula 1.

“It’s still been a dream come true, but I obviously would’ve loved to have finished how we started. I’ve been working towards racing in F1 since I was very young and I’m so grateful to everyone at Williams for the opportunity to put me in the car for these last nine race,” he noted.