Colapinto Takes Out Gasly, Then Norris, in One Baku Restart

There is reckless, there is unlucky, and then there is what Franco Colapinto did at the restart in Baku: locking up, arriving at Turn 1 with far too much speed, and driving straight through his own team-mate before collecting Lando Norris for good measure. One move, two cars eliminated, and a third, his own, dragged into the pits to retire minutes later.

One Lock-up, Three Retirements

The safety car, deployed after Alex Albon’s earlier incident wiped out George Russell’s commanding lead, bunched the field back up and set the stage for chaos at the restart. Up front it went smoothly enough: Russell held the lead, and Max Verstappen nipped past Oscar Piastri for P2. Further down the order, it went badly wrong.

Colapinto tried to dive up the inside at Turn 1, but came in carrying far too much speed to make the corner. He speared through the braking zone and collected both Pierre Gasly, his own Alpine team-mate, and Lando Norris‘s McLaren. Neither Gasly nor Norris could continue. Both cars were left stranded on track, and both drivers’ races ended there and then, on lap 35.

Colapinto himself somehow kept moving after the impact, but there was no masking the damage. He limped straight into the pit lane and parked the car for good, completing a miserable set for Enstone: two cars binned by one driver’s error, and that driver taking himself out in the process.

Gasly’s Fury Over the Radio

Gasly’s reaction over team radio needed no translation. Being eliminated by your own team-mate, with Alpine on course for points, is the kind of thing that tends to sour a driver’s mood rather quickly.

“Man, I love that I get taken out by my team-mate. I can’t believe it. So many points down the drain.” – Pierre Gasly

It is hard to argue with him. Norris had already had an underwhelming afternoon by his standards, sitting well down the order following an earlier Turn 1 mistake of his own, but he was still a McLaren driver worth points on a given day, and his race was ended by someone else’s error entirely.

The Constructors’ Damage

This was not a minor points swing. Gasly and Colapinto had been well placed to cut Alpine‘s deficit to Racing Bulls in the battle for fifth in the constructors’ championship down to just four points. Instead, both cars scored nothing, and the gap stands to widen rather than shrink. In a midfield fight this tight, throwing away a result like that to your own team-mate’s mistake is about as expensive as errors get.

The one mitigating detail, if you can call it that, is that Alpine were not alone in self-inflicted misery at the restart. Behind the main incident, the two Racing Bulls cars also made contact with each other, a coincidence that will have done nothing to improve Liam Lawson‘s mood on his return to the Faenza squad after his loan spell deputising at Red Bull. Small comfort for Alpine, but comfort of a sort.

Second Safety Car of the Afternoon

The stricken cars brought out the safety car for the second time in the race, with marshals sent to clear the wreckage from the circuit before the field could be sent back to green. It capped an afternoon in Baku that had already delivered plenty of drama before Colapinto’s restart error added another layer to it.

Gasly’s radio message said all that needed saying: points down the drain, and no way to get them back.