Colapinto disappoints crashes in qualifying on return to Formula 1

Shortly after Qualifying was restarted, in the wake of Yuki Tsunoda destroying his Red Bull, red flags were waved again when Colapinto crashed; the Argentine on his Alpine debut as a replacement for dropped Australian Jack Doohan.

Colapinto got onto the grass approaching Tamburello and lost control right at the end of Q1, spinning and hitting the barrier head-on with the front suspension smashed.

The 21-year-old Argentine, who raced nine times for Williams at the end of last year and had a number of crashes while also scoring precious points, had already set a lap time good enough to progress to Q2.

Later, it got worse for Colapinto, who was handed a one-place grid drop for a pit lane infringement before he crashed at the end of the first phase of qualifying but was listed as 15th on the timesheets.

FIA F1 Stewards summoned the driver after the session for entering the fast lane in the pit lane before a restart time was confirmed following a red-flag period.

They later said in a statement: "The team representative stated that he gave the instruction for the car to creep out but not be fully released. The driver misunderstood the instruction and entered the fast lane before the restart time was officially confirmed," they said in a statement. Once this was done, it was too late to reverse course and the team instructed the driver to proceed down the pit lane."

Alpine argued there was no sporting advantage gained, given that it was early in the first phase, but to no avail. Colapinto will be looking to make amends on race day, and put behind him the disappointment of Saturday's mishaps.