Franco Colapinto’s Alpine career is only five races old, but he’s already on thin ice with the boss.
After qualifying a middling 14th and lapping 0.432 seconds slower than Q3-bound teammate Pierre Gasly — his second-biggest deficit of the year — de facto team principal Flavio Briatore made his displeasure clear.
“Clearly the car was good enough for Q3, but we are still lacking having two cars up where they should be,” he said.
“Franco was through Q1 but too far away to reach Q3, which we need to improve if we are to put ourselves in a more competitive position with both cars.”
Fox Sports, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every practice, qualifying session and race in the 2025 FIA Formula One World Championship™ LIVE in 4K. New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited time offer.
It was an escalation in language from the executive director, who two races earlier had told Sky Sport Germany that he was “not happy at all” with Colapinto’s results in his first three races.
But the bigger blow to the struggling Argentine came on Monday, with reports his seat was under imminent threat.
Valtteri Bottas, according to The Race, is being sized up for an Alpine drive as soon as this season.
Per the report, Briatore has opened talks with Mercedes about releasing its experienced reserve driver, and the German marque has no opposition to seeing the Finn back on the grid.
Talks will undoubtedly be made easier by the fact Alpine will buy Mercedes power units from next year to replace its discontinued in-house engine.
A new dimension to the driver chaos was added later on Monday when Alpine announced reserve driver Paul Aron — who finished third in last year’s Formula 2 championship and is now the team’s permanent reserve driver — would be loaned to Sauber to enter two of the next three FP1 sessions.
Remarkably all this came just days after Alpine appeared to settle on keeping Colapinto beyond his original five-race evaluation, which ended with him finishing a penalised 15th in Austria.
But no move is too unpredictable for Alpine management.
‘F***ing idiots’ – Max fumes after crash | 01:09
HOW DID IT COME TO THIS?
Alpine has form for eventually executing long-telegraphed driver changes, having replaced Jack Doohan with Colapinto in May after rumours of a switch first surfaced late last year, before the team had even signed the Argentine on loan from Williams.
Colapinto’s improvement on Doohan has been marginal at best.
In qualifying he’s an identical 0.235 seconds on average slower than Gasly — in both cases respectable enough margins for rookies — while he’s made Q2 three times, same as the Australian. Colapinto’s best qualifying result of 12th is just behind Doohan’s high of 11th.
His average finishing position in races is 14.4, fractionally up on Doohan’s 14.7. Both have recorded a best finish of 13th. Like Doohan, Colapinto is yet to score a point this season.
If he really is at risk of being chopped, at least Alpine is being consistent with its expectations.
The need for the second car to find form is more pressing now than it was in May.
Alpine has since dropped to last in the constructors championship. It’s scored just 11 points for the season, which is less than half of ninth-placed Sauber’s 26-point haul.
The French-owned team is 44 points behind Williams, which heads the midfield in fifth.
The Austrian Grand Prix highlighted Alpine’s problems.
Despite Gasly qualifying 10th and rising to sixth by the end of the first lap, he was powerless to hold a place inside the points — and that’s despite only five of the usual eight frontrunning cars being in contention to score.
He inexorably slid down the field, ceding places to drivers from Racing Bulls, Aston Martin and, most importantly, Sauber.
Colapinto, 11th at the end of the first lap, was never a points threat.
“Frankly, this level of performance is increasingly concerning,” Briatore said. “While yesterday [in qualifying] the car was quick and should have been well inside Q3 with two cars, Sundays are a very different story for us, and it is important we understand why this is, especially if we want to turn this season around from this difficult position.”
Piastri: ‘They find a way to f*** me!’ | 00:46
But Gasly making Q3 for the third time in the last five races — albeit interrupted by two Q1 eliminations — flatters the car, which in pure pace rankings is sliding down the order.
Average gap to pole, last five rounds
1. McLaren: 0.044 seconds
2. Red Bull Racing: 0.415 seconds
3. Ferrari: 0.538 seconds
4. Mercedes: 0.557 seconds
5, Aston Martin: 0.863 seconds
6. Racing Bulls: 0.888 seconds
7. Williams: 0.913 seconds
8. Alpine: 1.129 seconds
9. Haas: 1.315 seconds
10. Sauber: 1.320 seconds
Sauber has had its upgraded car at only three of the last five rounds and is arguably now ahead, while the season-long development trend has Alpine moving backwards faster than Haas.
Whichever way you cut it, the development trend is not good.
It’s a grim outlook for the former title-winning Renault-owned team, far beneath the standards a works constructor should be setting — even if the brand will jettison works status by shuttering its engine division from next season.
But developing out of this sort of hole takes time, and with getting an early start on the 2026 rule changes imperative, Alpine’s ability to arrest its slide through upgrades is limited.
So Briatore appears to be lunging for the one change that might bring with it an immediate bump.
McLaren boys caught in early dogfight | 01:12
CAN A DRIVER CHANGE FIX A CAR PROBLEM?
Putting two rookies in the gun after barely a handful of grands prix each sets a new standard for ruthlessness in Formula 1.
At least Liam Lawson had another Red Bull team to race for when he was dropped from Red Bull Racing after just two rounds.
It’s also no shortcut to performance.
While contemplation of yet another driver change is motivated by avoiding an embarrassing last-place finish in the constructors championship, there is no guarantee a fresh face will deliver an uptick in performance if it’s simply beyond the car to finish any higher.
Briatore admitted as much at the Spanish Grand Prix wen asked whether Gasly was a title-calibre driver.
“If you don’t have a competitive car, it’s very difficult to understand where you are with the driver,” he said.
“First the driver needs the balance of the car, needs the car to be competitive, [needs to] feel strong in the car.
“It’s very difficult to understand what level Gasly is at in this moment if we don’t give him a competitive car.
“Let’s build him the competitive car, and after we’ll know where we are with the driver.”
Examples are plentiful on the current grid — just consider Yuki Tsunoda and Lawson’s varying fortunes with Red Bull Racing and Racing Bulls.
That’s not to say Bottas wouldn’t be a step forward on the two rookies who have and are occupying Alpine’s second car.
Without speaking to either Doohan or Colapinto’s potential — perhaps to be forever unrealised thanks to Alpine’s itchy trigger finger — Bottas can trade on his reputation as a veteran of 246 starts, 10 wins, 67 podiums and 20 pole positions.
He was a good match for Hamilton in qualifying when the two were teammates — and Hamilton is the most prolific pole-getter of all time — which would make him a good second benchmark for the car’s raw speed.
The Finn and his Mercedes experience would also be valuable for development purposes, particularly as Alpine focuses on the 2026 car — though Doohan at least was regularly praised for his technical work during his year as reserve driver last season, so he at least shouldn’t be discounted on that front, even if his perspective as a young gun would be relatively narrower.
“2025 is a year we need to prepare ourselves for 2026, so whatever experiment I need to do, we’re doing,” Briatore said earlier this season, alluding to Colapinto’s elevation in the context of the team’s broader objectives.
If he no longer sees the Argentine as an asset for 2026, he can no longer be considered safe.
Piastri lockup nearly takes out Norris! | 00:30
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE DRIVER MARKET?
The prospect of Bottas joining Alpine this season on a deal that could extend into 2026 is interesting given he isn’t the first experienced driver connected to that seat.
Rumours earlier in the year linked Sergio Pérez to the drive, albeit likely for next season rather than sometime this season.
That speculation cooled relatively quickly, however, with the Mexican thought to be all-in on securing a drive with Cadillac next year.
Bottas was his only competition for the drive, though only if the nascent American squad intends to pair an experienced driver with a young gun. If it were to decide to field two old hands, Bottas and Pérez would be the obvious line-up.
Bottas appeared to have been at the front of the queue last month. Only last week he posted a cheeky video on social media in which he caresses the driver’s seat of a Cadillac SUV, telling the camera, “That’s actually a nice seat. I wouldn’t mind”, though he adds it’s “not yet” time to sit in it.
But while talks to bring Bottas to Alpine are reportedly at only an early stage, it might be inferred that Pérez is much closer to securing the Cadillac driver than the Finn. At a minimum it would be a boost for Pérez’s hopes of locking in his comeback.
It’s unclear whether Bottas would see Alpine or Cadillac as a more attractive option.
Cadillac is a blank slate but an unknown quantity with unclear potential, even with the full backing of General Motors, which will supply engines in coming years.
Alpine is a known quantity but has been in decline for years, during which time it has been gripped by almost non-stop management turmoil, and it is constantly dogged by rumours Renault will sell despite frequent denials.
Cadillac is hoping to sign its first driver by the mid-season break, with meetings laid down for this weekend’s British Grand Prix, but the identity of its second driver could be months away.
‘Oh s***, he’s on me!’ | 00:58
Meanwhile, Alpine appears to be preparing for an eventuality in which Bottas drives only during this season or turns down the chance entirely.
Reserve driver Aron’s mileage with Sauber will pair with what the team says will be three additional FP1 outings in the second half of the season to form a strong baseline with which to evaluate his suitability for a drive this or next year.
Whether any or none of these situations come to pass, what is clear is that Alpine isn’t satisfied with its driver line-up and is preparing for change.
That’s not to say Colapinto can’t stave off an early axe.
After all, the team was motivated to elevate him in the first place, and Briatore in particular wanted him in the car.
And incumbency is powerful. Now in the thick of the European season on circuits he knows well from his junior career, if he can score points before the mid-season break or at least regularly closely match Gasly, the team will have less reason to up-end its line-up for a third time since last December.
This weekend is the British Grand Prix, where he so impressed Williams in damp conditions in FP1 last year that he was in the car full-time four races later.
It’s as good a chance as any to reset and hope that he can convince enough to stay in the seat until the other side of the mid-season break, every race after which he competed in last year bar the Dutch Grand Prix.
That experience could prove crucial to him finding consistency and form.
But he has to make it there first, and with Alpine already having shown extreme ruthlessness with its driver line-up and already appearing to weigh up alternatives, there’s no guarantee of that.