Credits: IMAGO / PanoramiC

With Logan Sargeant being sacked by Williams, Franco Colapinto stepped up to partner Alex Albon and made his F1 debut in Monza last weekend. The Argentine driver will get to experience what it is like to be an F1 driver for the remainder of the season. While fulfilling his mandatory duties for Williams at the Italian GP, Colapinto made a rookie error.

Becoming an F1 driver comes with the responsibility of fulfilling a team’s public relations and marketing duties. Many of these include fan interactions, signing sessions, and trying one’s best to make the fans happy. This is where Colapinto made the rookie error.

The Argentine driver was asked to sign merchandise by many F1 fans. Since it was Colapinto’s F1 debut, the autograph held greater meaning. However, after a few autographs, Colapinto lost consistency, and his varying signature has blown up on social media.

A fan pointed at a major blunder made by Colapinto as he wrote the year wrong. The fans’ tweet read, “Since the signature of @FranColapinto is a topic of conversation, I asked him to write Monza 2024 and for me, it says 2029” 

The Williams driver felt apologetic for his mistake and replied, “Oh my god, I wrote this signature wrong, sorry!!! And on top of that, I wrote the year wrong.” 

Colapinto asked the fans if he could upload a tutorial of him signing the autograph, but the idea was scrapped. Apologizing to the fans, he tweeted, “When it starts to look weird it’s because I have a degradation of signatures… I quickly lose my talent for signing.”

The Argentine has quickly gathered a huge following in the F1 community. Having a consistent autograph will only come with time and practice since a lot of it is done while walking down the paddock.

Regardless, unlike Colapinto’s signing capabilities, he did exceptionally well on his debut. The new Williams driver only managed to qualify in P18 but crucially made up six positions during the race and finished in P12, just outside the points.