Franco Colapinto has raced at Baku three times and everything he has to show for it came on the second weekend of his Formula 1 career.
Three starts, four points, one retirement. The first visit is still comfortably the best one.
Four points in week two, then two years of nothing
Colapinto was dropped into the second Williams late in 2024 and his second race was the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. He qualified eighth, finished eighth, and took four points at one of the hardest circuits on the calendar with almost no preparation. It stayed the biggest single haul of that nine-race stint.
The move to Alpine has not produced anything like it. 2025 was sixteenth on the grid and nineteenth at the flag, a lap down, on a weekend where the car was never in the conversation.
2026 at least started better. Ninth on the grid was his best Saturday in an Alpine here and put him back in the points fight. He was out on lap 36, one of two Alpines to retire that afternoon, with Pierre Gasly going a lap earlier.
Franco Colapinto's Azerbaijan GP record year by year
Every Azerbaijan Grand Prix start, with the grid slot it came from and what it was worth.
| Season | Grid | Finish | Points | Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 8 | P8 | 4 | Williams |
| 2025 | 16 | P19 | 0 | Alpine |
| 2026 | 9 | P17 | 0 | Alpine |
A record still resting on one afternoon
No win, no podium, no pole and no fastest lap, and a points column where a single race accounts for the entire total. Three starts is a small sample and two of them have ended with nothing, but the one that worked worked immediately.
The useful detail from 2026 is the grid slot rather than the result. Ninth was a real step for that car at this circuit, and it is the first time since the Williams weekend that he has arrived on Sunday with something to defend.
