FRANCO COLAPINTO: ROUGH TIME, WHAT IS HIS FUTURE?
The 2025 season of Franco Colapinto in Formula 1 so far hasn’t been easy. The young driver from Argentina joined Alpine earlier this season, taking over Jack Doohan’s seat from Imola. A lot of people had high hopes for him after his success in Formula 2 and his first races in Formula 1 with Williams, but it’s been a rough ride since his comeback at Alpine.
His first race weekend back in Emilia Romagna didn’t go well — he crashed in Q1 during qualifying and caused a red flag. Since then, things haven’t really improved. He had another crash at Silverstone in qualifying and couldn’t even start the race because the car had a gearbox issue. In Austria, he made contact with Tsunoda and got involved in another incident where he blocked Piastri under blue flags. He got a penalty for that as well.
After the Austrian GP, Colapinto stated:
“I didn’t have these issues last year… Now I’m struggling. The car is a bit tricky on entries and that’s what we are working on.”
So far, he’s done seven races but hasn’t scored any points, while his teammate Pierre Gasly has been carrying the team’s performance. It seems like Franco is still trying to get comfortable with the car, but the pressure is definitely building.
Pirelli Tyre Test – Another Crash
Things got worse yesterday (August 6th) during the Pirelli tyre test at the Hungaroring. Colapinto was driving Alpine’s test car (a modified version of the A525) when he crashed at Turn 11 — a pretty fast corner. Alpine stated that Franco was assessed on site at the medical centre and was ok.
Because of the crash, Alpine had to stop testing with that car and switch to an older chassis. Pirelli also made it clear that their tyres weren’t the reason for the crash. “The crash was not related to our compounds,” Pirelli’s motorsport boss Mario Isola confirmed.
Is Colapinto risking to lose the seat?
There’s now talk about whether Colapinto will keep his seat after the summer break. Alpine is last in the Constructors’ Championship, and with every race, the pressure to perform grows.
Flavio Briatore did not hesitate to say that he looked for Valtteri Bottas for a potential mid-season change inside the French team. With the Finn close to secure a seat for Cadillac towards the 2026 Formula 1 season, Briatore thought that finish the 2025 season as a regular driver, could be preparing Bottas very well for the next year.
Although Bottas wants to lock a drive in Formula 1, he decided to leave Alpine aside and focus on the possibility of getting the Cadillac seat, trusting the American project in the long term.
It is understood though that after evaluating all the scenarios, Alpine is set to keep Franco Colapinto for the rest of the season, to try to make the Argentinian regain confidence with the machinery after a brilliant debut with Williams towards the end of 2024.
Alpine’s future
The future is not looking bad at all for Alpine at the moment. After changing its engine supplier to Mercedes, the French team is set to regain the spotlight within the midfield at least, since it is said around the paddock that the Germans are building the most dominant engine for the 2026 season.
Whether Alpine will keep Colapinto it is impossible to know, but there are surely many drivers to consider for 2026. One of them: the current Formula 2 championship leader Leonardo Fornaroli, whose consistency has been unmatched so far.
Coming from a winless Formula 3 title with Trident, the Italian is following the light of Gabriel Bortoleto towards Formula 1 by moving to Invicta to try to make two titles in two seasons. Fornaroli currently leads the F2 standings 17 points ahead of Crawford second, with 3 wins in this season, two of them coming from sprint races in both Silverstone and Spa.
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