Alpine boss Flavio Briatore insists that this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix is Franco Colapinto’s first “real race”.
Since replacing Jack Doohan it would be fair to say that the youngster has hardly set the F1 world alight.
While he qualified 15th on his first outing at Imola, despite crashing out in Q1, he was at the back of the grid last week in Monaco, finishing the races in 16th and 13th respectively. Though, by no means, a disaster, the Argentine’s arrival has hardly justified the harsh way in which Jack Doohan was treated.
While it was originally claimed that the youngster effectively had five races in which to prove himself, this was subsequently denied by Briatore, and speaking to reporters in Spain he shed further light on the situation.
“We need to wait one second to judge Franco,” he said. “We see. We see this race. We need the full race.
“We did Monte Carlo. It was a very special race for everybody,” he added. “We made a lot of mistakes in qualifying. And in Monte Carlo, you know, qualifying well is the race. Especially this race. Monte Carlo, it was very boring and very annoying.
“Let’s see. This is the first real race of Franco. Races, I don’t know, honestly. I never tell five races, three races, four races, one race. We see.
“If Colapinto is performing he’s driving the car. If not, we’ll see.
“2025 is a year we need to prepare ourselves for 2026. So whatever experiment I need doing, we’re doing. I don’t know at this moment if Franco will stay for the season or not, but let’s see. Depends on the performance. We’re only looking at the performance – nothing else.”
The Italian was equally non-committal when it came to naming a replacement for Oliver Oakes.
Asked what he was looking for in a new Alpine boss, Christian Horner interrupted and laughed: “Cheap!”
“Cheap? No,” said the Italian. “This month’s the difference, I have between ten months, eleven months. Now we’re looking for somebody, you know, there’s a lot of people it is possible to be doing this kind of job. But we’re looking for somebody good, somebody who understands, somebody who wants to be part of the team.
“I know a few people who want to be part of this new trip with Alpine. We decide quick.”
Ever evasive and self-contradictory, Briatore was none too happy when asked if Mick Schumacher would be joining the team.
“Well, I’m not sure why we’re talking about Schumacher now,” he snapped. “We are here in 2025. I don’t understand. What you want to know?”
Asked again, Briatore said: “Yeah. Sure. Everybody said that. I don’t think it’s the question to ask here, now. Next question!”
And when the journo persisted and asked: “Just to be clear, is Mick going to be signed?”, the Italian responded: “I don’t want to talk about that.”
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