Colapinto to retain Alpine seat in 2026 – The Alpine Team have become the Formula One championship’s whipping boys in 2025, anchored to the foot of the constructors’ standings with just 20 points to show for their efforts. The last points scored for the French owned team came before the summer break in Belgium, where Pierre Gasly scrapped home in tenth place.
This time last year in Brazil, Alpine had their best outing in terms of total points scored since Renault re-bought the team the team for the 2016 season with Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly finishing second and third respectively in a rain drenched Grand Prix.
The team named Renault/Alpine since 2016 has one Grand Prix victory in its trophy cabinet when back in 2021 Esteban Ocon’s lead was defended to the hilt by team mate Fernando Alonso who kept the charging Lewis Hamilton at bay in Hungary allowing his team mate to take the chequered flag.
Renault in the modern era an F1 woe
But Renault in the modern era have been on the whole a tale of woe. Their underpowered V6 Turbo hybrid launched in 2014 became the source of ridicule as their world championship customer, Red Bull suffered from reliability issues and a lack of performance.
In ten years since returning to Formula One, the Renault owned team has had no less than six team principles and four of them since 2022 alone. There have been accusations of the team being underfunded by the French auto manufacturer and in a boom era for F1 sponsors and partner’s this is an indictment which should sit with the top executives in the French Corporation.
In a desperate bid to revive the glory days, Flavio Briatore who oversaw four F1 titles for the team has been appointed the de facto team principal since the resignation of the latest walking dead, Oliver Oakes. Yet in the since months since assuming the role, the flamboyant Italian has so far had little impact on the team’s fortunes.
For the first time in history, a Renault owned team will compete without its own engine in 2026 as Briatore believed a significant part of the issues facing the team were forged in the power unit plant in Viry-Chattilon. Alpine will become a Mercedes customer for powertrains next year in Flavio’s best efforts to date to restore some levels of reasonable performance.
Doohan sacked after six weekends
Prior to Briatore taking overall control, the team had signed for this season the talented Australian Jack Doohan. However, dazzled by a rookie Argentinean’s performances during a stand in role for Williams at the end of 2024, Flavio decided to recruit Franco Colapinto as a ‘reserve driver’ over last winter.
In a desperate bid to shake things up, the team made the bold decision to swap drivers after just six rounds, replacing Jack Doohan with Franco Colapinto — the young Argentinian who had impressed during a late-season stand-in role for Williams the previous year. Colapinto comes with huge South American financial backing which is another plus for Alpine and he was given Doohan’s seat after just sic race weekends the season.
When he rep[laced the hapless Logan Sargeant at Williams last year, Franco wasted no time making his presence felt, scoring points in two of his first four outings — eighth in Baku and tenth at the Circuit of the Americas. His early promise even sparked rumours of Red Bull considering him as a future replacement for an underperforming Sergio Pérez.
However, a spate of costly crashes at Williams cooled that interest quickly, despite his valuable sponsorship backing from South America. Franco’s early outings for Alpine were hardly spectacular in comparison to his predecessor although they were marginally stronger than Doohan’s — averaging 14.4th place finishes to Doohan’s 14.7, while the Australian had the edge in qualifying (16.1 vs 15.3). Despite the underwhelming statistics, Alpine have persisted with rookie Argentinian, signalling a commitment for him to at least see out the season with the team.
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Last Alpine point in Spa-Francorhcamps
Having cancelled their in season development around the time of the British Grand Prix, Alpine have faded into oblivion and now rarely break into the top 17 in either qualifying or the race classification. As their competitive relevance has vanished, the media attention has naturally gravitated elsewhere.
Yet quietly right down the championship order, Colapinto is enjoying something of a revival. Since Gasly’s solitary point scored in Spa, Franco has out qualified and finished ahead of his French team mate four of the last seven Grand Prix. Gasly is nobody’s fool and an experienced campaigner but Colapinto has radically improved his fourteen race average start positions against his team mate from just over three places further back on the grid to parity since the summer break.
Team boss Flavio Briatore recently told The Race in Azerbaijan that Alpine’s 2026 lineup would come down to a straight fight between Colapinto and Paul Aron. Jack Doohan has been given his marching orders and today the news came he is expected to compete next season in Japanese Super Formula.
“It’s between Franco and Paul,” Briatore said. “Paul is a very nice guy, very quick as well — and I need to understand what is best for the team.” Aron got his chance to impress during FP1 in Monza, finishing bottom of the timesheets but just half a second shy of Gasly’s pace. Despite a late spin on medium tyres, Alpine’s engineers were reportedly pleased with his feedback and data work. His strong opening laps — within two tenths of Gasly — then kept him firmly in the running for a full-time seat next year.
Colapinto defies team orders
Since then Franco Colapinto’s have been impressive with him displaying the signs of a champion when he defied team orders in Austin not to overtake his team mate. With the Alpine pair running 16th and 17th in COTA and Gabriel Bortoleto closing in, Colapinto was told over the radio to “hold positions.”
“Wait, what?! Hold positions?! But he’s slow,” snapped back the Argenitnian, before launching a move into Turn 1 a lap later. Gasly’s tyres were heavily worn after an early stop for softs, leaving him defenceless. The team later claimed fuel management concerns justified the order, but few within the paddock bought the explanation.
Colapinto defended his choice post-race: “I had slightly fresher tyres than Pierre and saw Gabriel attacking. I wanted to keep him behind both of us.” In the end, both drivers were lapped by Max Verstappen, with Colapinto finishing P17 and Gasly down in P19.
Alpine’s team management claimed to be unimpressed by Colapinto\’s defiance with managing director Steve Nielsen made no secret of his irritation: “As a team, any instruction from the pit wall is final, and we’re disappointed that didn’t happen today. We’ll review and deal with it internally.”
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Impressive results vs Gasly
However, unlike the infamous “consequences” McLaren declared land Norris would face, come the next outing in Mexico Alpine issued no sanctions on their young driver. For a rookie, disobeying a direct order can either signal arrogance or conviction. History favours the latter — Senna, Schumacher, Vettel — all defied authority early in their careers, and all went on to dominate their eras.
With Alpine miles away from the points, the team’s call to freeze positions seemed more political than tactical. Colapinto’s willingness to trust his instincts could be the hallmark of a driver who refuses to settle for the status quo.
It seems nailed on Franco Colapinto will now remain with Alpine into 2026. His financial backing and excellent results against team mate Gasly in recent weeks will surely persuade the mercurial Briatore that he is the man for the moment. The question is whether Alpine can raise their game next year, otherwise Colapinto will be searching for pastures new.
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Bernie Ecclestone, the ex-F1 supremo accuses the Andrea Stella and Zak Brown double act of favouring Lando Norris over their young Australian driver Oscar Piastri. Norris has overturned a 34 point deficit after a Piastri dominated race in the Netherlands and in just five remarkable race weekends now leads the Formula One drivers’ championship by a single point from his team mate.
Piastri though has somewhat contributed to his own downfall having a miserable weekend in Azerbaijan where he crashed both in qualifying and on lap one of the race. As if things couldn’t get any worse, Oscar made a false start in the Grand Prix before ending up in the wall in turn four….. READ MORE
A.J. Hunt is Senior Editor at TJ13 and a career journalist with experience in both print and digital sports media. Having trained in investigative journalism and contributed to several European sports outlets, Hunt brings rigour and polish to every article. His role is to sharpen analysis, check facts and ensure TJ13’s daily output meets the highest editorial standards.
