Grand Prix

Social Media Reacts to Franco Colapinto's 'Save Of The Season' at Australian Grand Prix

While no points were picked up by the young Argentine, he captured all Formula One fans' attention immediately after lights out.
Jude Short|
Franco Colapinto, Alpine, 2026 F1 pre-season testing
Franco Colapinto, Alpine, 2026 F1 pre-season testing | BWT Alpine F1 Team

An eventual P14 finish for Franco Colapinto meant that his pointless streak with Alpine would extend into a second season, made slightly less ideal by the fact that Pierre Gasly was able to pick up a singular point.

But it was a miraculous save from the ex-Williams racer that made Colapinto's name the talk of the town on social media, as immediately after the race start, he managed to skirt around the slow-moving Liam Lawson to avoid plowing into the back of the young Kiwi and keeping both of their races alive.

Colapinto's move to avoid disaster appreciated by F1 drivers and fans alike

Franco Colapinto, Alpine
Franco Colapinto finished 2025 with no points to his name, in a season that Alpine struggled in. | Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images

To start off, footage of the Alpine escaping a crash with Lawson very quickly went viral online, with F1 media source @MV33Racing describing the manoeuvre as 'THE [sic] save of the season already"

This stance was echoed further by F1 fan @CSI_Starbase, who believed that the incident could have ended even more severely than anticipated and that despite 'people [talking] a lot of crap about Colapinto [due to struggles with Alpine], his reaction time probably saved Liam’s life."

Despite the immense ability displayed by the number 43 car, a couple of posts went viral for mentioning the penalty that Colapinto received after an unrelated starting grid infringement that mistakenly came up on the screen as a 'Colapinto-and-go' penalty instead of the usual 'stop-and-go' displayed.

The official Formula One account also got involved, with the organization posting a clip of the top three drivers visibly reacting to the incident, with race winner George Russell's facial expression particularly notable.

Another account named @simscircuit pointed out just how significant it was to see other professional drivers react to the video with such shock, saying:

"franco colapinto we are all speechless wow seeing the reaction on f1twt [F1's Twitter/X community] is one thing but seeing his fellow drivers react like this really puts it into perspective [sic]

The Race's post demonstrated just how close the Argentine got to the pit wall, of which Colapinto referred to as a 'sketchy incident'—maybe a slight understatement.

Here are a few more interesting insights from the race regarding Colapinto as well as the penalty he had to face:

"The funny thing is that the mistakes are always with Franco Colapinto, not with Gasly....and that is concerning...One mistake its ok, even two but 2025 was one after another. 2026 would [sic] be the same?"
@@morfeomon on X
"cars stalling at starts will always happen with new engines

but the fact is last years cars have absolutely zero chance of avoiding a crash the way colapinto did here [sic]"
@vetvidivici on X

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Jude Short
JUDE SHORT

After graduating from the University of Essex in 2024, Jude spent time as both a writer for Breaking the Lines and NBA Editor for VAVEL USA, before publishing work for GRV Media, GPFans, and startup site The Deck. Jude had a brief stint back with VAVEL in the summer of 2025, before joining Grand Prix on SI in September of that year.

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