Briatore: Colapinto is a different person now, he's surprised me

Saturday, 08 November 2025 at 12:09

Flavio Briatore has defended his decision to retain Franco Colapinto at Alpine F1 Team beyond the 2025 season, claiming that the Argentinian driver has improved drastically and can go toe-to-toe with experienced teammate Pierre Gasly.

Many were surprised when the Enstone-based outfit chose to sign Colapinto for the 2026 season. He is the only driver on the current grid yet to score points in 2025, and has been thoroughly outmatched by Gasly in the same A525 car.

The 22-year-old replaced an underperforming Jack Doohan prior to the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. There was a certain expectation that he would perform better, owing to a string of impressive performances for Williams in the latter half of the 2024 campaign.

Unfortunately, he has failed to live up to said expectations, clearly struggling for outright pace compared to his race-winning teammate. Admittedly, being in the slowest car on the grid can never make you look good.

Briatore, Alpine's Executive Advisor, is nevertheless determined to make a case for Colapinto, and explained the reasons why he chose to retain the young driver at Alpine.

A difficult environment

Briatore: Colapinto is a different person now, he's surprised me

Owing to Alpine's recent performance-related struggles and the pressure of being a debutant driver, Briatore believed that the odds were stacked against Colapinto in the beginning.

He said: "What's difficult for all these young kids is that they are arriving in this environment of Formula 1 with a lot of pressure from sponsors, the team, etc.

"Unfortunately, we have a not so performant car. It's difficult to drive. I believe in the beginning Franco was a little bit lost and he needed three or four races to be much better," Briatore stated.

In recent Grands Prix, Colapinto has closed the gap to Gasly by a considerable margin, even surpassing the Frenchman at the Singapore and United States rounds.

Briatore drew on this fact to highlight the immense strides that the Argentine has made over the last few months.

He continued: "If you see Franco in the beginning when he started racing with us and you see him now, he's a different person. He's much more secure, has much more commitment with engineering and he's done everything to be performing. He spends a lot of time to understand better the car.

"In the last two or three races, the performance of the team is still no good at all, but the performance of Franco was very good."

Two equal drivers

Briatore admitted that in the early part of Colapinto and Gasly's partnership, the latter was definitely the number one driver. But over time, the balance of power has shifted slightly.

The Alpine boss added: "The relationship with Pierre is very good. We now have two drivers; we're working with two drivers. Franco feels like he's part of the team. He's one of the two drivers of Alpine.

"Before, we had one driver and everything was on the shoulders of Pierre. Now we have split the weight. It's on the shoulders of Pierre and Franco. Franco is managing well," stressed Briatore.

According to the Executive Advisor, Colapinto has not only gotten faster behind the wheel, he has also applied himself on the engineering side to elevate the team as well as himself.

Briatore claimed: "He understands what he is doing with the team, with the engineering. He has really surprised me. In the beginning, I had a lot of people in the team who were not convinced about Franco's performance.

"I kept going with Franco and now everyone believes Franco is fantastic for us and is the right team mate for Pierre.

"If you look at the last races, touch wood, there have been no accidents and he's been driving very well. He's been very close – two tenths up, two tenths down to Pierre – and I consider Pierre one of the best drivers in Formula 1, I think he's one of the top six drivers in Formula 1.

"My job is to deliver the right car for Pierre and Franco next year," concluded Briatore.

Colapinto will be hoping to justify Briatore's decision with a solid result at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. The main race commences on Sunday 9 November at 17:00 GMT (14:00 local time).

(Source: f1.com)