Flavio Briatore, about Colapinto: “I’m not happy, but Franco is strong enough”

Alpine’s strong man talked about Argentine’s work after his first three races with the team and was clear in his concept.

In just 17 days, Franco Colapinto fulfilled his first three races in Alpine, a team he reached in 2025 to occupy the Piloto Reserva post and in which he was anointed as a starter from the seventh date of F1 after Jack Doohan was out of granted to the place of substitute. After playing the last nine appointments of 2024 with Williams, Flavio Briatore put his eyes on the Argentine to add him to the Estone team. The vertiginous future of Buenos Aires placed it in the A525 armchair in the Emilia-Romagna GP, in Isola. In that weekend, Briatore wrote the three commandments: do not collide, walk quickly and add points. Colapinto lacked one in the classification in the Boloñés layout at the end of the wall in its last attempt at Q1. Since then, he went through Monaco, a very special career, and Montmeló. Precisely, the GP of Spain was marked by the Italian Pope as the starting point to deeply analyze the work of the Argentine and, after 66 laps, was not shown satisfied.

Colapinto started far behind (18th) product of a failure in the transmission of Alpine at the most inopportune moment: when he left boxes to make his last attempt at Q1. The classification was precisely the highest point of the Argentine throughout the Catalan weekend and the passage to Q2 seemed insured, but the car did not respond. In the race, Franco was very inconstant in the rhythm, especially with average covers, with times that varied in almost three seconds between one lap and another. Closed on the weekend, Briatore spoke are Sky Germany and left a clear concept.

“If I said I’m happy now, I would lie. I’m not happy. Now we have to see how the season evolves for him,” The Piedmontés said. Beyond the first concept, Briatore provided support for the Argentine to recover quickly: “Of course, you also have to recognize that Franco is very young and has a lot of pressure from everywhere, not only from Argentina. Now he has adapted little by little. Franco is strong enough. In this work, you have to recover confidence as soon as possible. So I hope he achieves it soon and heads. ”

Colapino’s performance did not go unnoticed to Nico RosbergF1 champion in 2016 and today became Sky’s commentator. The German basically focused on BriTore: “Colapint is right now on the wrong side of Flavio and you don’t want to be there. Flavio leaves his pilots number two. explained.

The next challenge of the Argentine will be the Canada GP, next 15, in the semi -permanent of Montreal, an unknown track for Franco, without a doubt, an extra challenge.