Alpine executive consultant Flavio Briatore says he will continue to “experiment” with the team’s driver line-up as he considers their options for 2026.
But having originally given Franco Colapinto five races to prove himself, Briatore indicated he may be more generous with the deadline.Colapinto drove for the team at Imola and Monaco after replacing Jack Doohan in their line-up. But Briatore told the official F1 channel on Friday “Monte-Carlo is not considered as a race, I consider this is the first race” for Colapinto.
“We need to wait one second [before] judging Franco,” he explained in the FIA press conference. “We’ll see this race, we need the full race.
“We did Monte Carlo. It was a very special race for everybody, we made a lot of mistakes in qualifying. And in Monte Carlo, qualifying is the race. Especially this race, Monte Carlo, it was very boring and very annoying. Let’s see, this is the first real race of Franco.”
When Alpine announced Doohan’s exit earlier this month, the team said it would reconsider its driver line-up ahead of the British Grand Prix at the beginning of July. However on Friday Briatore said the situation will remain fluid while he weighs his options for next year.
“I don’t know, honestly, I never tell: five races, three races, four races, one race. We’ll see.
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“If Colapinto is performing, he’s driving the car. If not, we’ll see: 2025 is a year [when] we need to prepare ourselves for 2026. So whatever experiment I need doing, we’re doing.
“I don’t know at this moment if Franco will stay for the season or not, but let’s see. It depends on the performance. We’re only looking at the performance, nothing else.”
Alpine has retained Doohan as a reserve driver alongside Paul Aron and Kush Maini. However rumours have also linked Mick Schumacher, who races for Alpine in the World Endurance Championship, to a drive in their F1 team.
Briatore signed his father, Michael Schumacher, in 1991 and took him to his first two drivers’ championships at Benetton. However he refused to answer questions about the younger Schumacher’s chances of returning to F1 with Alpine three years after being dropped by Haas.
“I don’t think it’s the question to ask here, now,” said Briatore during the press conference. “Next question.”
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mc4ren (@mc4ren)
31st May 2025, 7:36
Briatore really looking old and clumpsy in that press conference. Doesn’t give the impression of having much energy to push and organize a challenging project.
Jere (@jerejj)
31st May 2025, 11:03
That question about Mick was pointless in the first place, asking about something that won’t happen anyway.
He has zero chance to replace Colapinto firstly because Colapinto won’t get sacked easily due to his strong sponsor backing & geographical marketability, & even if they wanted to let him go, he’d probably only be replaced by Checo as a driver with the same credentials combined with vast F1 racing experience, depending on how the Cadillac matter goes, & otherwise, Zhou with the same two credentials.
Perez will most likely still end up at Cadillac & if he gets paired with Zhou, Bottas would most likely replace Colapinto as someone with vast F1 racing experience, or perhaps even Tsunoda.
Besides, Alpine is one of those teams that have overlooked Mick at least once, so thinking the matter would be any different is unrealistic, not to mention contradictory because teams generally don’t hire drivers whom they’ve overlooked at least once before, nor give second chances to previously sacked or demoted drivers, for that matter.
Otherwise, he would’ve been chosen as Ocon’s direct successor instead of Doohan if they truly desired him, especially considering who was in charge by that point.
Simon
31st May 2025, 14:15
“unrealistic, not to mention contradictory”
Like a lot of your predictions, then…
Roger Ayles (@roger-ayles)
31st May 2025, 13:03
So far replacing Doohan hasn’t really looked like the right decision. Doohan wasn’t that far off Gasly’s pace and was even quicker at times and with him out-qualifing Gasly in Miami it also looked as if Doohan was making good progress and improving as you would expect from a true rookie.
Colapinto did 9 race weekends last year so you would think he’d be further along than Doohan was so trying to claim that this is his first real race or whatever is just nonsense.
Why not just be honest, This was never a performance related decision and Colapinto is probably safe regardless of what he does because it was a call made purely for commercial reasons.
Also we have constantly been told the past few years that Liberty have saved F1 from the need to have pay drivers because with the cost cap, increased revenue and better split of the income all the teams were in good financial positions and no longer needed to take drivers with cash over those without it. But this decision seems to show that not to be the case.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
31st May 2025, 18:43
Agree, I was impressed by colapinto initially, but so far he’s not done any better than doohan. If he continues like this I’d like to see him replaced again, else, like you said, hints at different reasons for the replacement.