Up Next
Franco Colapinto is closing on a 2025 Formula 1 role with Alpine, although Jack Doohan will still start the season as Pierre Gasly’s team-mate.
Colapinto competed in the final nine races of the 2024 season with Williams, having replaced Logan Sargeant from the Italian Grand Prix onwards.
He scored five points, four more than Sargeant managed in one and a half seasons, but Colapinto’s F1 chance at Williams was always going to be restricted to a 2024 cameo as it already signed Carlos Sainz to partner Alex Albon from 2025 onwards.
Colapinto, who has been part of the Williams young driver academy since 2023, attracted a lot of attention with his initial F1 performances.
He scored points on only his second start, in Azerbaijan, and again two races later in the United States – both being tracks he had not raced on competitively before.
Red Bull and Alpine were known to have met with Colapinto and his management, and had discussions with Williams, about potentially signing him for 2025 to bolster their driver options.
But that interest cooled when Colapinto endured a tougher end-of-season run with heavy crashes in Brazil, in qualifying and during a safety car in the race, and Las Vegas qualifying. Albon also re-established a clearer pace advantage in the final races, too.
Red Bull ultimately opted against factoring Colapinto into its driver shake-ups across its two teams for 2025, but Alpine negotiations persisted – even though it had confirmed Doohan in a 2025 race seat in August 2024.
As reported by prominent Argentinian sports publication Olé, and confirmed by The Race, Colapinto is now expected to have an Alpine role confirmed soon.
It is unclear if he will join permanently or with provisions for a Williams recall, as a ‘loan’ move had been part of early discussions, but Colapinto will not immediately take an Alpine race seat.
Recruiting Colapinto strengthens the Alpine driver pool and gives it a reserve driver and longer-term option for the team who already has F1 experience - in contrast to Colapinto's brief 2024 F2 rival Paul Aron, who joined Alpine’s young driver programme late last year, and long-time Alpine junior Victor Martins.
As for Doohan, who made an earlier-than-planned F1 debut in the Abu Dhabi 2024 finale following Esteban Ocon’s premature exit from Alpine, he is safe in his race driver role for the start of 2025 at least.
It has been speculated that Doohan’s contract contains a provision allowing Alpine to replace him after only a few races if he does not meet certain performance criteria.
Alpine executive advisor Flavio Briatore is known to be willing to make difficult decisions, and will not shy away from replacing a driver he feels is underperforming. When asked, he has not ruled out changing the driver line-up after the season has started.
Colapinto’s presence in the background will only add to the pressure on Doohan, especially given the significant commercial interest that accompanied the young Argentine driver’s F1 spell with Williams.
Though any Doohan performance clause would simply be an aggressive version of what often exists in driver contracts, especially those of rookies, it would still mean that Doohan’s fate is in his own hands.
If he performs at or above the level Alpine demands of him, it will have no need and perhaps even no method to replace him with Colapinto.
