Argentine race driver Franco Colapinto completed a difficult race to finish 19th in the Belgian Formula 1 Grand Prix. 

It was bound to be a tough race at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, one where the 22-year-old driver had struggled to showcase his best driving in his Alpine car. Heavy rains fell in the morning, making for a hard race to predict.

Before the race, Colapinto admitted he requested the team not to make any changes to the car setup, which had been planned for a dry race, as he was “sick of starting from the pitlane.” Teams that chose to make setup or part changes after qualifying have to have their car start from the pitlane in last position.

It proved the correct call, as the race start was suspended due to the heavy water sprays lifted by the cars in full wet conditions, which ruined visibility for drivers behind.

The start was greenlit an hour and twenty minutes after the original set time. Even then, it started under the safety car, with cars completing four laps behind it until racing was allowed. Starting from 15th, Colapinto fought to stay with the midfield pack, while the track was still wet. But as the track dried, so did his progress. 

Colapinto dived into the pits in lap 13 to switch to the medium compound dry tire, but it proved a bad call, as his pace fell off a cliff around the 20th lap. He was quickly overtaken by Mercedes’s Kimi Antonelli, and then by Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll two laps later. He had to make another stop on lap 29, which dropped him to 19th place, where he finished just ahead of RB’s Isaak Hadjar.

“It was a tough race,” Colapinto told reporters after the race. “Coming out into dirty air when I got the slick tires made me wear them out too much, so it became a very long race. We tried to move ahead but got stuck, and it was a race where if you couldn’t overtake you were left stranded.”

The 22-year-old added he felt the team stopped him for slick tires “one or two laps too late,” and that cost him.

“With the wet tires I was quick and getting closer to [teammate Pierre Gasly], but after that with the slicks we lacked pace.”

“It was positive to finish the race, but our performance with the slicks was very bad again, with no pace and sliding all over the place,” he added. “Dirty air also hurt us a lot, so it wasn’t a good race in that regard.”