Then Colapinto got behind the wheel, the first Argentine driver to take part in the world championship in 23 years. In his debut grand prix at Monza, he qualified 18th and drove to a 12th place finish, only 13sec behind team-mate Albon who had started (and finished) in ninth.

At the next grand prix in Baku, Colapinto qualified in ninth, a place ahead of Albon who’d had to abandon his final flying lap because a cooling fan was still attached to his car. The next day, he collected four championship points, with an eighth-place finish, just behind his team-mate.

Now with five races under Colapinto’s belt, two points finishes and more favourable comparisons to Albon, Horner has asked Williams about the prospect of buying out Colapinto’s contract for next year’s vacancy at the RB team. The driver has also been linked with the Sauber team that will shortly become Audi.

It’s not just his raw pace that impressed. After his debut in the Italian Grand Prix, Williams team principal James Vowles stressed just how quickly Colapinto adjusted to his new surroundings.

“To finish within a few seconds of Alex, of which the delta was all made in the first stint, when he qualified out of position, is a good result,” said Vowles. “He procedurally got everything correct that he needed to; at the start he didn’t lose position, he did a good job at the pitstop. Up to his mistake in qualifying he was about within a tenth of Alex.

“We loaded him up with more information than a human being can take, and if you ask him now, he’ll say that was definitely too much. But it didn’t cause him to go into any other state than ‘this is how I do things, and this is how I perform the best’, and that’s part of the reason why he’s in the car.”

But how did the Argentine driver get where he is today? Motor Sport takes a look back at his career so far.

Franco Colapinto’s early years

Born on 27 May 2003 in Pilar, Argentina, Colapinto jumped into his first go-kart aged 9 and quickly turned heads.

He won the Argentinian Championship in 2016 and continued to show potential on both the national and international stage in the years to come.

After winning another Argentine title in 2018, Colapinto also captured victory at the Youth Summer Olympics in the same year, which saw 12 drivers from across South America compete in teams of two in a single race. Colapinto and team-mate María García Puig won convincingly from pole.

The move to single-seaters 

In 2018, Colapinto made the all-important move into single-seaters and competed in Spanish Formula 4. The Argentine driver gradually improved across the season, and saw the podium for the first time at Navarra where he finished second to Javier González. In the following round at the same circuit, Colapinto earned his first victory of the season and ultimately finished 12th in the championship standings.

The following year, the now 16 year old Argentinian found his feet in F4, as he scored eight race wins across the season at circuits including Navarra, Motorland, Valencia, Jerez and Catalunya to claim the title by a 102-point margin.

In the same year, Colapinto also appeared sporadically in the Euroformula Open, against a strong field of drivers which included Liam Lawson, Yuki Tsunoda, Linus Lundqvist, Jack Doohan, Billy Monger and Dennis Hauger. His best result came at Spa, where he finished 14th.

Like many drivers, Colapinto’s 2020 season was impacted heavily by the effect of Covid-19. Nevertheless, he still managed to compete in two racing series: the Formula Renault Eurocup and the Castrol Toyota Racing Series. He finished third in both championships; won three races in total. He finished third between Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson in the Toyota Racing Series.

A step away from single seaters 

2021 proved to be a busy year for Colapinto, as he ventured away from single-seaters and into racing sportscars.

While also completing a semi-successful Formula Regional European Championship campaign, where he secured two Grand Slams, a further victory and a  podium finish, Colapinto also contended the Asian and European Le Mans Series as well as the 24 Hours of Le Mans — all in the LMP2 category.

Although Colapinto was able to secure podium finishes in the both the 4 Hours of Dubai and the 4 Hours of Abu Dhabi (as part of the Asian championship), his best performances of the year came in Europe. The Argentine driver secured victory at the 4 Hours of Le Castellet alongside Nyck de Vries and Roman Rusinov of G-Drive Racing and the trio also finished second at the 4 Hours of the Red Bull Ring. The same form however could not be replicated at La Sarthe, as Colapinto’s No26 car finished a distant 6th.

F3 and F2 

With the aim of re-establishing himself as a potential F1 star, Colapinto made the move back to single-seaters in 2022 — jumping up to Formula 3 with Van Amersfoort Racing.

In his first ever qualifying session for the series, the Argentinian made his mark by securing pole in Sakhir — besting the likes of Victor Martins, Zane Maloney, Oliver Bearman, Isack Hadjar and Jak Crawford. Colapinto went onto to win two races and secured five podiums in his rookie year, and ultimately finished ninth in the title standings.

His performance attracted the attention of the Williams Racing Driver Academy Programme, which in January 2023 announced Colapinto as its latest addition. Colapinto once again entered the FIA Formula 3 Championship and built on his results from the following year, winning two sprint race events at Silverstone and Monza before eventually finishing fourth in the standings behind Paul Aron, Zak O’Sullivan and runway title-winner Gabriel Bortoleto.

In October 2023, Williams announced that its Argentine junior would be promoted to Formula 2 for the 2024 season with MP Motorsport, but made his official series debut with the team at the final round of the 2023 season in Abu Dhabi — where he qualified 20th, finished 19th in the sprint and failed to finish in Sunday’s feature race.

The start of the 2024 season was much more prosperous for Colapinto, as after two point-scoring finishes from the opening three rounds of the season in Sakhir, Jeddah and Melbourne, Colapinto earned his maiden F2 victory at Imola with a final-lap pass for victory in the sprint over Paul Aron.

Two further podiums finishes in Spain and Austria as well as FP1 appearance for the Williams F1 team at Silverstone soon followed.

Behind the scenes, Colapinto was also impressing with his performances in the Williams’ simulator, so after one crash too many from a low-in-confidence Sargeant, the team rolled the dice with its Argentine rookie, handing him an F1 seat for the remainder of the season.

A temporary F1 promotion

“It is an honour to be making my Formula 1 debut with Williams,” said Colapinto in a statement given by Williams ahead of the Italian Grand Prix, which announced him as Logan Sargeant’s immediate replacement for the remainder of the 2024 season. “This is what dreams are made of. The team has such amazing history and a mission to get back to the front which I can’t wait to be part of.”

Colapinto attributed his 12th place finish at Monza to his engineers — as well as team-mate Alex Albon — who had worked tirelessly to get the Argentinian up to speed.

“I’m super grateful with the chance Williams gave me. The trust that James [Vowles] has put in a younger guy in the seat at Williams, that is something that represents the team.

“After so many years, without an Argentine driver, for it to be me [that is] the one joining Formula 1, was just an amazing feeling and very special.  I learned  a lot [at Monza]. I haven’t done more than eight laps in a row in a F1 car before that, and then suddenly they put me into a 53 [lap race] and that was very tough. There were many circumstances that I was not sure what I had to do, and I was learning during the race.

Franco Colapinto’s racing record