29/06/2025 21:25
Franco Colapinto's position with Alpine appears to suddenly be
under pressure, RacingNews365 understands. Heading into the
Austrian Grand Prix, that did not appear to be the case, but over
the weekend at the Red Bull Ring, the feeling is that the situation
changed. Although it is understood Alpine has not been impressed
with the pace Colapinto has shown so far, the assumption has been
that he would retain his seat beyond the initial five-race plan as
proposed by Flavio Briatore when the 22-year-old replaced Jack
Doohan. Briatore, who has taken on the de facto team principal role
after the departure of Oliver Oakes, later downplayed the
significance of the five-race situation, seemingly taking a degree
of pressure off Colapinto. Those five races drew to a close with
the grand prix in Austria. On Saturday, however, Alpine informed
Colapinto and his management team that the Argentinian needed to
start performing. Colapinto qualified a reasonable 14th, following
on from his 12th on the grid a fortnight previously in Canada,
although in Q1 he was a quarter of a second slower than team-mate
Pierre Gasly, who went on to reach Q3, with the Frenchman lining up
14th. In the race, the 22-year-old finished a lap down in 15th,
last but one of the classified finishers, with only Red Bull's Yuki
Tsunoda behind him. Colapinto also incurred a five-second penalty
for forcing McLaren's Oscar Piastri off track, a punishment that
did not affect his position in the classification, but further
blotted his copybook for the weekend. Following the race, the
position of Colapinto's management team is unclear but the pressure
is there, as was the case with Doohan during his opening six-race
stint before being dropped. Colapinto brushed off his race
performance initially. He said: "I, and the team as well, are
focusing on improving the car," he said, speaking to the media,
including RacingNews365 . "We looked a bit weak today, and we just
need to take some steps forward. "The car has been a bit tricky for
me to drive at the moment. It's not very consistent. It's quick,
but it just didn't give me the confidence I needed to push in the
high speed here. It was a tough weekend. "Overall, we did some
steps forward, but it felt like something didn't click." Asked by
RacingNews365 if he had any concerns that Briatore would make a
change, he replied: "I'm not really concerned. I think he has been
very supportive and he has trust on the decision he's made."
