COLAPINTO CONFIRMED AT ALPINE FOR 2027
Franco Colapinto will race for Alpine again in 2027. The team announced on Thursday that it had extended the Argentine’s contract, keeping an unchanged line-up alongside Pierre Gasly for a third season together.
Colapinto has scored 19 points across the first twelve rounds of 2026 and sits twelfth in the drivers’ championship. Gasly, the team’s lead driver, has 44. Colapinto’s best result of his career came in Canada, where he finished sixth.
In 2025 he did not score a single point after taking over the car, and Briatore said publicly in August of that year that he was not happy with him. Colapinto was competing directly with reserve driver Paul Aron for the 2026 seat and won that fight late in the season.
Franco arrived in Formula 1 mid-2024 with Williams as a replacement for Logan Sargeant, starting at Monza, and scored points in only his second race with eighth place in Baku. He then joined Alpine as reserve driver in January 2025 before being promoted to the race seat from round seven, replacing Jack Doohan.
Alpine switched from works Renault engines to customer Mercedes power units for the new 2026 regulations, and moved from the back of the grid into the midfield. The team currently sits sixth in the constructors’ championship with 63 points, which was the minimum finishing position Briatore had set as a target for the season, and is now trying to catch fifth.
Colapinto brings sponsor backing and one of the largest fanbases in South America, which is valuable to a team building an identity. Alpine’s own assessment is that this was a bonus rather than the reason, and that his improved driving and his working relationship with Gasly and the team decided it.
For his part, Colapinto said he felt settled and pointed to how much progress the team has made compared with last season, while stressing that the goal remains competing for wins.
Formula 1 returns at Monza on 4 September for the Italian Grand Prix, where Colapinto is due to receive the upgraded package Gasly ran early at Zandvoort. Gasly himself is under contract until at least the end of 2028, so Alpine’s driver line-up is now settled well beyond next year.
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