Alpine announced last week that the 21-year-old Argentine will drive in the next five grands prix as part of a driver ‘rotation’ policy.
Doohan and Colapinto have therefore swapped roles, with the Australian now named as the team’s reserve after contesting the first six races of the campaign.
Colapinto starred in a nine-race tenure with Williams last year and had long been touted as a likely in-season replacement for Doohan after being snapped up by Alpine in January.
“I have a great opportunity ahead. I’m happy to be in F1,” said Colapinto at Imola ahead of the first of his five confirmed races that also include Monaco, Barcelona, Montreal and Spielberg.
“I don’t even think in terms of five races – I’m just in a happy place and I’m dealing with it very well. I think at the moment I just want to get back in the seat and drive.
“And of course, after you heard Carlos [Sainz] – especially Carlos – saying that he needs like 10 races to get used to a car, I think five is not enough for me. I’ve only driven nine in my life in F1.
“So yeah, it probably takes me a few more races, probably a couple more than five to get up to speed and maximise everything out of the car.
“But it is what I have and I just want to maximize it, enjoy it and try to do the best for the team.”
As reserve driver Colapinto has been heavily involved with the team this year, undertaking simulator work that has ramped up since the rotation announcement.
Colapinto, who scored points in two races last year but also suffered some heavy accidents, says it’s hard to set results targets with Alpine and that he’s “just trying to go step by step”.
“I don’t really know the car, so a lot of new things coming and I just want to do the basics right and then the results are going to come,” he said.
“I’m not really expecting any kind of result.
“The performance of the teams is so tight and it changes from track to track. At the end, in FP1 and FP2 we don’t really have a clear view of where we are at.
“We’re still working a lot with the team. The main goal is to make the car quicker as well. We need to find a lot of performance, and I think that’s going to come with a lot of work from everyone.
“So that’s the main goal – to try and improve the performance and then of course, after these five races, we’ll see.”
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