The name Franco Colapinto has become an overnight sensation owing to his big F1 break. After a tough stint of over a season and a half, Williams let Logan Sargeant go. The man replacing him for the remainder of the 2024 season is MP Motorsport’s F2 driver, Franco Alejandro Colapinto.

To many of those who heard or read his name for the first time, the last name seemed familiar. That is because Colapinto shares the name with the Colapinto brothers. For the uninitiated, the Colapinto brothers are the American surfing sensations — Crosby and Griffin. Most recently, in the news for making it into the Paris Olympics, Griffin became a household name in the United States.

The Colapinto brothers also run a YouTube channel, Cola Bros, and an Instagram handle @cola_bros, where they post vlogs and edits of their surfing adventures. While their YouTube channel has a 34k strong subscriber base, they have a following of 47.1k on Instagram.

Crosby and Griffin are the only children of Mitch Colapinto and Camille Brennan, who taught kids surfing in San Clemente. Therefore, Franco is not their sibling.

Franco will drive for Williams for the remainder of the season, which still has nine races remaining. To jump out of the F2 pool and compete in the premier class of motorsport won’t be an easy task. However, Williams’ top brass, including team boss James Vowles, would not push him to deliver points every race weekend.

The expectations from the Argentine driver would be simply to drive the car home without crashing for the first few races. That is something that Sargeant couldn’t ensure in his year-and-a-half stint. Further into the season, Williams wouldn’t mind finding him in points finishes, if the car continues to progress the way it showed potential in Zandvoort.