What can happen after Franco Colapinto races with Alpine?

The French team announced to the Argentine for the next five races, starting a possible rotation system in the second chair of the A525 to accompany Pierre Gasly.

Franco Colapinto is back in Formula 1 as a starting pilot. After the nine races with Williams in 2024, the Argentine arrived in Alpine to be a reserve pilot and this Wednesday, the Estone team announced it as Pierre Gasly’s partner, andn replacement for Jack Doohan, but clarified that it will be for the next five races, which include: Emilia-Romagna, Monaco, Spain, Canada and Austria.

And then? Flavio Briatore, brand new director of the French team and main promoter of the arrival of the Argentine to Estone, said: “After analyzing the first races of the season, we made the decision to align Franco with Pierre in the next five tests. With a championship as close as this year, and with a competitive car that the team has improved considerably in the last twelve months, we are in a position in which we understand our need to Duo. We also know that the 2026 season will be important for the team and that a complete and fair evaluation of our pilots is the right thing to maximize our ambitions next year. “

Briatore and Alpine engineers are expected to carry out an evaluation of Collapinto’s work in the five races and then determine the steps to follow. “The only insurance is death,” Flavio said in December last year when asked about the pilots. The continuity of Buenos Aires is not ruled out, but it is not clear if Briatore will want to go up to Paul Aron (the other reservation) or, perhaps, until he puts Doohan again, who will go as a substitute at the five appointments that the Argentine is insured. Obviously BriTore wants his pilots to be pressured, because the Australian put Collapint behind the start of the year. And now, he falls to the Argentine, with a term of competencies and with Doohan on each appointment. This is Flavio.

The passage to the ownership of Colapintmainly free market. For Briatore, the economic part is so important (perhaps more) than track performance. Perhaps the five announced races is a way of pressing to get more liquidity. Or generate a compulsa in which Aron can enter too.

Alpine’s decision came after the Australian showed interesting flashes on a single round launched (he beat Gasly), but his walk in Carrear showed many fissures. That, added to the accident in Japan’s second training session (he did not close the DRS in the first curve and crashed into the wall).

The clear thing is that Colapinto will have five races. That was the period of its best performance in Williams in 2024, scoring points in two competitions (Azerbaijan and Austin). Then came the strong accidents from Brazil (two) and Las Vegas. If Franco managed to repeat in the next five major awards what he made last year, he could mark his continuity. In favor you have to know very well four of the five clues that you will visit with the A525 and in some even those that won in F3 and F2 as Imala, which will mark its premiere with Alpine next 18. Then Monaco will arrive, where he added in the two races he played with the F3 in 2023 and in one of the two F2 competitions last year. In Barcelona he visited the podium three times (third with a 2020 European Renault formula, second with F3 in 2023 and second with F2 in 2024). And in Austria it also took trophy in F3 and F2. Only Montreal will be unknown land.

In favor you will also have to, in those five insured races, none will be within a weekend with Sprint and in all you will have the three training sessions, key track time. The refusal is that Alpine is less competitive than the Williams it managed in 2024.