Last Updated on December 20 2024, 11:41 am

James Vowles has now revealed the plans for their star young Argentinian driver, Franco Colapinto who replaced the hapless Logan Sargeant with eleven Grand Prix weekends remaining of he 2024 formula One season.

Colapinto stepped in with just a days notice for Williams at the Italian Grand Prix in September. He immediately impressed by being much closer to Albon in qualifying than his predecessor. Further, Franco scored points in two of his first outings which attracted attention from none other than Red Bull Racing’s Christian Horner.

When asked about his thoughts on the impact the rookie Williams driver was making in F1, Horner appeared to drop a hint that Red Bull could be interested. “I think Franco, again, is a kid that’s doing really, really well,” the Red Bull boss told assembled media in Mexico City.

 

 

 

Red Bull lose interest in Colapinto

“Of course, you’re always keeping an eye on the driver market and I think Franco definitely has got the qualities to be a potential star of the future.”

Horner’s comments came after James Vowles had confirmed that Williams were “actively working” with interested teams towards a solution for Colapinto for F1 2025. Then came Brazil and Las Vegas, where Franco destroyed his car in qualifying and during the Grand Prix in Sao Paulo and again in his desperate bid to reach Q3 in Las Vegas.

Red Bull’s interest faded in a moment and returned its focus to finding solutions form within its own driver academy programme. There have been reports that Flavio Briatore is interested in bringing the Argentinian to Alpine, although the team’s newly announced rookie for next season is the team’s junior driver Jack Doohan who is managed by the flamboyant Italian.

Persistent reports have circulated that despite one of his charges being in the box seat with the French owned F1 outfit for 2025, that Doohan’s contract is only secured for the first five race weekends of the campaign. Colapinto would bring huge backing from South America and even some of the big money sponsors who were part of the Sergio Perez package.

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Alpine’s contractual secret

Flavio’s job is to get Alpine on an even keel, to even make it self sustaining fro the current handouts provided by the French auto manufacturer. The finance Colapinto brings is hugely attractive in this light and despite being offered the Alpine drive by his own manager, Doohan’s F1 journey may not survive beyond the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in April.

One of the problems for Colapinto is Williams hold his contract and are setting a remarkably high tariff for it to be bought out. $20m was the reported fee Red Bull were asked to pay to release the Argentinian from Grove, something which Dr. Halmut Marko suggested “wasn’t worth the money.”

Vowles attempted to broker a deal with a number of big hitting South American sponsors for the to buy out Colapinto’s contract then recoup the fee over the lifetime of the drivers’ earnings. But Red Bull interest ending, put pay to that deal structure.

Now James Vowles has revealed the plans for Colapinto should he fail to get a drive for Alpine after the first five events of next season. “We’ll make sure he’s running a historic car testing programme, TPC [Testing of Previous Cars] we call it,” Vowles tells the Independent. “That will keep him fresh and honest.

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Vowles confirms Franco’s 2025 role

“He’ll do full testing, TPC testing, simulator work. He’ll come here with us to be a reserve driver at the same time.”

In terms of his future beyond this season the path into Formula One looks fraught. A number of teams have driver lineups secure for another two years, although Cadillac will be looking for drivers and sponsors for the 2026 F1 season which may create some churn elsewhere in the current driver market.

“I’m fairly sure he’s well enough respected in the business that he won’t only be a third driver here, but the other teams would very much like an opportunity to help Franco as well,” continued the Williams boss.

“We’ve been discussing [seats] with other teams. For transparency, not with Cadillac. I want to make sure he has a successful career. If we can’t offer that, then we’ll find a position for him and see what we can offer him in the future.”

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Albon linked with Red Bull return

As the recent Red Bull saga over their driver dilemmas has been playing out, it became public knowledge that Alex Albon has a “get out” clause should Red Bull come knocking. Prior to the announcement of Liam Lawson there was a belief in certain quarters in the paddock that an Albon return to Red Bull alongside Max Verstappen was on the cards. 

Should Lawson prove to be another failure alongside the world champion, Red Bull could return to the mindset when they recruited Sergio Perez. “If the academy is not good enough get an experienced driver from outside.”

And to be fair this worked well for the Mexican and Red Bull for three years as Checo often picked up the pieces when Max was not on the top step of the podium. This is the role they want Lawson to play, but should he bomb he will not have the grace period afforded his predecessor.

Then it wold be Williams who benefit from Colapinto’s service as he would be the natural replacement for Alex Albon. Veteran F1 pit lane reporter Ted Kravitz described Red Bull promoting Liam Lawson as “the wrong decision” on the Sky F1 podcast and that the Williams driver was a better punt.

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Red Bull recruitment U-Turn

“I think Alex Albon actually, strange as this might sound, I think an engineering, which I don’t think would have taken much of a lever, to get  Alex Albon out of Williams.

“Williams could have run Franco Colapinto and Carlos Sainz, perfect, and Alex Albon, at least, would have been a known measure against Max Verstappen,” said Kravitz. Albon is so much older and wiser and knows how to handle Max and the whole situation and I don’t know why they haven’t done that.”

When recruiting Perez, Red Bull broke with their rendition which had seen the likes of Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen rise from their junior ranks. They opted for experience over raw talent and for three of the four seasons got exactly what they required from the Mexican.

Now the team have done an about turn by promoting a driver with just 11 Grand Prix weekend’s experience into Red Bull alongside Max. When they have done this in previous years, more often than not not it ends with further juggling of the driver line up later in the year.

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Red Bull axe Tsunoda

Red Bull are cleaning house in their Formula One driver lineups and the once joint favourite to replace Sergio Perez may now be out of F1. Yuki Tsunoda was signed by Honda to their racing programme back in in 2016 and two years later he was awarded a place within the Red Bull driver academy.

The optics were [plain for all to see. Red Bull were being supplied their power units by Honda and hey presto, they have a Japanese driver in their junior F1 team. Yuki has never been considered by the team’s management as the VCARB team leader, in fact when Nyck de Vries was announced for 2023, Dr. Helmut Marko stated despite being an F1 rookie, he would assume the role of the leading driver.

De Vries was gone ten race weekends later. In came Daniel Ricciardo who faired reasonably well against his Japanese team mate but come Singapore this year, Tsunoda waved goodbye to another team mate…. READ MORE