Kolapinto was welcomed as a national hero in his homeland.

      As reported by the Argentine press, no local driver has piloted a Formula 1 car in their homeland for about twenty years, but Franco Colapinto's demonstration runs in Buenos Aires yesterday vividly showcased the immense love for motorsport in this country.

      "Other Formula 1 drivers see how Argentinians support Franco and can't believe it!" quotes the Buenos Aires Herald Maria Katarina, Colapinto's manager. "Lando Norris even said he would like to be friends with Franco so that he could have so many people supporting him. It's just wonderful!"

      Tickets for yesterday's racing show were sold out in advance, but along the improvised city circuit in Palermo Park, there were also free-access areas where a large crowd gathered, although people had to line up starting at five in the morning. It is said that the total number of fans exceeded half a million.

      "This is madness, I can't believe my eyes! I'm Italian, so I understand well what passionate public love is, but something incredible is happening here! A large group of Franco's fans comes to every race, and it doesn't matter to them how it goes. This passion is hard to put into words," said Luca Mazzocco, a representative of Alpine F1. He has been working with the team from Enstone for a long time but assures that he hasn't seen anything like this since the days when Fernando Alonso raced for them and won races and titles.

      Of course, the Argentine Alpine driver himself is grateful to his compatriots for such support.

      "I'm incredibly excited because I've long wanted such a meeting with the public," Franco shared before the races began. "When I see so many people here in my country, I feel an incredible pride. I know that many have come from afar, and that's not easy, so I hope we can show all of Formula 1 what we are capable of!"

      The organizers of the show approached the event on a grand scale: in addition to the racing program, there was also a vibrant cultural program, with popular Argentine singers and musicians performing for the audience, and even Argentine Air Force planes flew overhead.

      Colapinto drove four runs behind the wheel of a Lotus-Renault E20, a 2012 car, but painted in the current Alpine F1 colors, and he joyfully spun "donuts," smoking the tires. And when he returned to the track, now wearing a 1950s-style racing helmet, in a replica of Juan Manuel Fangio's historic Mercedes Benz W196 Streamliner, waving the Argentine flag, the crowd experienced genuine delight.

      The day concluded with another 15-minute series of runs in the Lotus-Renault and another round of "donuts," with witnesses noting that this time, with the mechanics of Alpine's permission, Franco acted much more boldly.

      "What a wonderful day!" Colapinto summarized. "Argentine fans are the best in the world, and today we showed Formula 1 that our country deserves its Grand Prix."