How high can Colapinto finish on his Imola return? 

During his first F1 stint, the Argentine performed well above expectations. Parachuted into Williams midway through the 2024 season as a replacement for Logan Sargeant, Colapinto racked up five points in an unfancied car and put in several defensive driving masterclasses.

Fast-forward to this season and the pressure on the gifted 21-year-old will be even higher. He now races for Alpine, a team still reverberating from the shockwaves of Jack Doohan’s dropping to reserve driver and team principal Oliver Oakes’ exit.

Colapinto has also been signed on a five-race contract, so he only has limited time to impress a watching Flavio Briatore, who is already making his presence felt after his own return to the team. With many other big-name drivers waiting in the wings, it’s certainly not a given that the driver lineup at Alpine will stay the same between now and the end of the season.

But there’s equally no denying that Colapinto is a huge talent. He was unlucky not to get a drive off the back of his last outing. Now he has the chance to earn himself a permanent seat in a fast-developing car. The big question is, how soon can he make his mark?

Though Colapinto shone brightly in Argentine karting and Spanish F4, winning the latter with 11 victories and 13 poles in 2019, he arrived in F1 as a relative unknown. This may’ve been down to his sole low-key season in Formula 2, in which he won one race and finished ninth overall.

However, when he did land in F1, he arrived with a bang. Williams had struggled to find strong second drivers to go alongside George Russell and Alex Albon, but Colapinto was different.

After making up six places to finish 12th on his Monza debut, he became the first Argentinian to score points since Carlos Reutemann (South Africa 1982) by finishing eighth in Baku. This was followed by further impressive point-scoring finishes in the US & Mexico. Although his season somewhat tailed off, he’d effectively cemented his name as one of F1’s biggest rising stars.

Despite links with Sauber (soon to be Audi) and even the front-running Red Bull, Colapinto ended up without a full-time race seat at the end of the season. Now, he has the opportunity to right this wrong. He has plenty of hurdles left to clear, but he’s already shown what he can do.

On the other hand, the turmoil at Alpine is real. Briatore is about as ruthless as F1 bosses come (see Nelson Piquet Jr.’s crash in Singapore). He’ll stop at nothing to get Renault back to the front of the grid—including switching to Mercedes engines next year and looking at other drivers.

Mick Schumacher is currently spearheading Alpine’s endurance racing efforts. It’s not out of the question that Briatore will turn to the German if things don’t go well for Colapinto. Sergio Perez has also emerged as a surprising contender for the seat in recent days.

Fortunately for Colapinto, Alpine has recovered from a pretty disastrous 2024 to being near the front of this year’s midfield. A few weeks ago, new teammate Pierre Gasly even claimed that they could be title contenders next season. That might be an exaggeration, but the car should at least give Colapinto the chance to show that he’s still got it over the next five races.

For his part, Colapinto has admitted that he needs to get up to speed quickly if he’s going to make his second F1 stint a successful one. The hard work starts at this weekend’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix from May 16-18, 2025.