With the official announcement from Alpine, which secured him as Pierre Gasly's teammate for the upcoming season, the Argentine put uncertainty behind him and opened another door: the campaign for Formula 1 to return to Argentina.
In an interview with Motorsport from Brazil, Colapinto expressed a wish that, as he admits, has been with him since he started competing. "One of my biggest dreams is to race in Argentina and do it with all the people cheering me on there. Formula 1 doesn't realize what that would mean yet and doesn't grasp the scale of it," he stated, making it clear that the emotional push a local Grand Prix would generate could also become a strong commercial argument for the category.
Colapinto's request comes at a key moment. A week after receiving the news he had been waiting for for months, Franco Colapinto has begun to use his newly confirmed status as a Formula 1 driver for 2026. The engineer emphasized that the planned expansion—which includes a deeper chicane and changes to the internal sector—would allow the track to be adapted to the current standards of the category.
Although there are still no official decisions on the Argentine candidacy, Colapinto's push, combined with the progress of the works and the renewed regional interest in F1, has put the topic back on the agenda.
The Autódromo Juan y Óscar Gálvez is undergoing a modernization process initially intended to host MotoGP in 2027, but behind the project is a second phase specifically designed to bid for the Buenos Aires circuit as a future venue for Formula 1.
Still, he was categorical in stressing that the priority is the return of the pinnacle: "As long as Formula 1 comes back to Argentina, it doesn't matter on which track we race."
Tilke, for his part, explained some time ago that the project contemplates two stages. "Phase 1 is for MotoGP and Phase 2, with specific modifications in two corners, is thought for Formula 1," he said in statements to ESPN.
With a local driver finally secured on the grid, the dream of the Argentine Grand Prix seems to have regained fuel. The work is in the hands of renowned engineer Hermann Tilke, responsible for several layouts on the current calendar.
However, Colapinto also left a criticism: he is not satisfied with the design proposed in the renders of the "New Gálvez". "I don't like it much because I know the historic Gálvez. It looks more like a motorcycle track than a formula one track," he pointed out. "I saw a couple of photos of the changes."
