Franco Colapinto’s chances of retaining his drive at Alpine appear to have improved as the team’s consultant Flavio Briatore gave a favourable verdict on his recent performances.
Briatore brought Colapinto in as a replacement for the team’s original driver, Jack Doohan, at the seventh round of the championship. Although Colapinto is yet to score a point, Briatore says the driver is improving with experience.
“For the moment I believe Franco is doing a good job,” he told Sky. “He paid a bit for [his] inexperience in the beginning, like a lot of the rookies, a lot of young drivers.
“Now in the last three, four races, he’s much more consistent, no mistakes, and maybe Franco, maybe we’ll see. We have another four or five races to judge, and after we’ll see.”
Colapinto, who appeared in nine rounds for Williams last year, achieved his best result of the season so far last weekend. He finished 11th last weekend, less than half a second behind Esteban Ocon, in his ninth event as an Alpine driver.
Briatore said other new drivers have taken a similar amount of time to get up to speed. “You see all the rookies we have this year, the first six or seven races were difficult for everybody,” he said.
“Now I think Franco is in the line to be stabilising himself. He’s driving well, has very nice communication with the engineering [team]. Let’s see.”
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Alpine announced today it has agreed a new contract with Colapinto’s team mate Pierre Gasly, who will remain with the team at least until the end of 2028. Briatore said the team intend to decide by November who will be his team mate next year.
Paul Aron, another of Alpine’s reserve drivers, drove Colapinto’s car in first practice at Monza yesterday.
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